Small World
by ellesmer.joe3
Summary: (Part 1 of my Aubrey/Cas series, "Of Angels and Men".) Castiel's misadventure with Sam and Dean's "old friend". / Takes place during Season 5's "Changing Channels", in which, when the Winchesters get kidnapped by the Trickster, it's up to Castiel and Aubrey to get them back. Secrets are revealed, and Aubrey realizes that she may be more involved than she thought.
1. Chapter 1

**new story alert! woot woot!**

**so yeah, recently got obsessed with Supernatural - therefore falling in love with the lovable angel of the Lord, Castiel. couldn't resist inserting an OC!**

**aand this story is just the first of a whole series (haven't thought of a name yet, any ideas?). this whole first story takes place during season 5, episode 8, AKA "Changing Channels".**

**anyway, i should stop ranting and let you onto the story ;)**

**I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS! ONLY MY OC, AUBREY MILLIGAN.**

* * *

**AUBREY**

It had been a long time since she'd seen the Winchesters. Her mother had been good friends with John. That was how she had met Sam and Dean. Of course, all this was before everything else happened.

When Aubrey got the message from Dean, after _ten years_, telling her he could use her help on a job, she was out speeding through the highway in less than ten minutes, her bags fully packed and her duffel bag full of guns ready.

Hearing about the sudden spike in demonic omens from the news could really stress a hunter out, but finding out that the apocalypse had already begun? Jump started by Sam and Dean Winchester, no less? Aubrey knew that a talk had been very long delayed between them.

Dean had texted her where they were and the address of the motel they were going to stay in, but when she really had the chance to read the name herself, she couldn't suppress a smile. A very sad, rueful, smile.

She read the words on the neon sign one more time, before finally turning her back on it and taking out her bags from her car. She rode a black pick-up truck, her father's. It wasn't as glamorous as Dean's was but it was comforting to even just sit on it.

The motel was a tiny little thing; as poorly structured and unpleasant to the eye as a century-old building. Aubrey walked inside. She was eyeing the foul-smelling, discoloured walls when she heard a guy clear his throat.

The desk clerk was a short pudgy man with brown stubble and almost no hair at all. He wore glasses and they slipped from his nose more times than few. His clerk uniform was far too small for him, making his belly bulge even more, but he didn't seem to care.

"Room for the night, miss?" he said, his voice _bored_. He looked at Aubrey with _bored_ eyes. His shoulders slumped like he was in the most _boring_ convention in the world.

Aubrey smiled pleasantly, ignoring the scowl on his face. "I'm with the two gents in Room 34, actually."

"Room 34?" His _bored_ eyes widened the slightest bit, as if the idea of a sisterly figure sharing a room with her two brotherly figures was the most sinful thing in the world. "They only paid for two beds."

"How much does a room cost?"

"Hundred bucks a night."

With a loud sigh, she brought out her wallet and gave the man a hundred bucks. "Fine. Room 35."

He snatched the money roughly from her hands and replaced the dollar bills with a small key, his grubby hands sweaty and sticky at the same time as it scraped against her fingers. Aubrey almost gagged. The clerk smiled, and Aubrey snatched her bags off the floor and walked away. "Nice doing business with ya!" he called.

* * *

After plopping her bags onto the hard bed in her stuffy, hundred-dollar-for-a-night room, Aubrey immediately came knocking on the door just across from hers. "Sam, Dean! It's me!" She could barely contain her excitement to see the brothers again. Her knocks were hard and fast and loud. There was no reason for them not to hear her. And from the shuffling inside the room Aubrey guessed they hadn't been very clean with their environment as of late.

The door finally opened. A tall man stood before her, probably in his early-twenties. He had dark brown hair that curled at the nape of his neck, warm brown eyes, and that cute goofy smile that Aubrey could pick out from a crowd.

"SAM!" She crushed him in a bear hug, laughing over his shoulder.

To her relief, Sam laughed with her. "Hey, Aubrey."

When she finally let go of him, she grabbed him by the arms, still on her tippy-toes. "How long has it been?" she asked, still grinning from cheek to cheek. "Last time I saw you, you were worrying about _school_!"

Sam laughed again. That same carefree laugh she'd barely been able to hear during her teenage years with him. "It's definitely been a while."

"And _jeez luiz_, you got TALL!"

He shrugged, making Aubrey drop her hands back to her sides. "Growth spurt came pretty late."

Then a new voice came, one Aubrey knew all too well.

"Aubrey, I thought we told you to slow it down with the coffee!" Dean came strolling in from the bathroom, wiping his hands with a white towel the same way he did ten years ago.

She tackled him with a hug, gentler than the way she'd handled Sam. Dean had always been the oldest out of the three. Aubrey was just a year older than Sam. He was her big brother… sort of.

Dean shook against her, chuckling. "Missed you too, Aubrey."

"You have no idea."

They all decided that the night would have to be spent catching up, not talking about the problem they'd have to face during the next few days, or months, or years.

They talked about recent events, past events, shared some good news, and shared some bad. When Sam told her about what happened to his girlfriend, Jess, all Aubrey could say was "I'm sorry", which made her feel kind of bad. But when they told her about what happened to their father, John, Aubrey couldn't quite believe it.

She knew that John Winchester was one of the best hunters in the country. Her whole family had known it. And she just couldn't bring herself to believe that he had been killed by some demons.

Aubrey knew that there was more to the story. There always was. Sam and Dean just didn't want to tell her. She could respect that, but a tinge of hurt still stung her chest.

When they had no more stories left to tell, an uncomfortable silence passed over them, one that Aubrey broke. "So… how'd you guys end up raising Lucifer from hell?"

Dean smiled grimly. "Long story."

She made a show of looking at her wristwatch. _2 am._ "I have time for long stories." Which she didn't.

Dean raised an eyebrow but otherwise didn't question.

They told her everything; starting from the opening of the Devil's Gate, to the demon Azazel, to Sam dying, to Dean's time in hell—one Aubrey paid specific attention to—, to the demon Ruby, to Lillith—to Sam's powers, even. She didn't judge. She wasn't like that. But she couldn't help but look at Sam for a long moment and ponder if he really _was_ going to go dark side.

"You could be the Anakin Skywalker of the hunters or something!" she said, trying to lighten the mood by suggesting that he would eventually turn good again, but it didn't seem to help. Sam just smiled before continuing with the story.

When they were done, it was 3 in the morning and the brothers weren't even tired yet.

"Aren't we gonna start looking for… _whatever_ you're looking for tomorrow?" Aubrey asked, rubbing her eyes.

Dean scoffed. "Not getting tired already, are you?"

"Dean, I drove all night. I think I _deserve_ to be sleepy. What's your excuse?"

"Oh, we're not sleepy." Dean spread his arms sideways, trying to prove his point. "_We_ are actually gonna go grab some dinner."

"_In the middle of the night_?"

"Hey, food down there is 24/7."

Aubrey leaned back against the chair, closing her eyes, sleep already washing over her. "Okay, fine," she groaned, not having the energy to throw something back. "Could you at least grab me a cheeseburger and a coke? I need some caffeine."

"Got it," Sam said.

"And you mind if I take a little nap here for a while? My room's a piece of crap."

"_Okay, fine_," Dean said, mimicking Aubrey's voice—'mimicking' meaning raising the tone of his voice just an octave of two higher. He sounded pretty stupid. "Just, don't leave such a mess, okay?"

And with that, they walked out the door and left.

* * *

_ She sat on the dinner table, her food untouched as she watched her father talking on the phone. She could see his hands visibly shaking as he held the headset to his ear. When he turned around to give his only daughter an assuring smile, she saw his eyes were brimmed with tears._

_ With the food long forgotten, she sat up from the table and walked to her father. Aubrey was old enough to know and understand what was happening, and she was getting scared. "Dad?" Her father didn't reply, instead mumbling incoherent things to the phone._

_ Aubrey frowned, tugging at her father's sleeve. "Dad? Who is that?" No reply again. "Dad, come on, dinner's getting cold." Her heart was pounding in her chest. She tried to hear the other end of the line but there was nothing. There was really _nothing_. Just static._

_ Just when she was about to give up and go back to the table, her father grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. Aubrey smiled half-heartedly, remembering that he always did that when he was on the phone and he was trying to tell her something. In this case, he was telling her to wait. "Alright," she mouthed, squeezing her father's hand in reply._

_ She waited next to her father, waited for him to hang up. During the last seconds of the phone call, her father's last words to the other end of the line scared her. He said, "I love you… I'm sorry." _

_ He hung up and immediately crushed Aubrey into him, hugging her tight. Aubrey, uncertain, hugged him back. "Dad?" He shook against her, and she felt the dampness of his chin against her neck. "You're scaring me."_

_ "You know I love you, right?"_

_ The question startled Aubrey, but she answered immediately. "Of course I do." Silence. "Dad, what's wrong? Who was that on the phone?"_

_ "Your mother."_

_ "Dad… mom's dead."_

_ "I know, honey."_

_ That night, she fell asleep to the sound of her father's pacing footsteps outside her bedroom door, and in the morning she woke up to absolute silence, a feeling of dread in her stomach. She threw off her sheets and ran downstairs and was greeted with the unmoving body of her father, lying on the floor in a puddle of his own blood._

* * *

Aubrey shot up from the bed. Her heart pounded against her chest, reverberating in her skull. Her arms were sticky with sweat, both from the long ride and the nightmare. Aubrey sighed, running her hands over her face. She hadn't had those nightmares for so long she was starting to believe she'd finally gotten past it.

_Apparently not._

Looking around the room, Aubrey saw no trace of Sam and Dean yet. From the window, she could see the faintest hints of sunlight fighting against the darkness of the night. She got up, stretching her arms over her head as she looked at the clock and saw the reason the brothers weren't back yet. She'd only been sleeping for half an hour. She groaned. Why couldn't she just get at least _one_ _hour_ of sleep? She'd been sleep-deprived for days, partly because of the apocalypse and partly because she didn't want to have _those_ kinds of dreams anymore.

She wandered to the bathroom—which was so much more luxurious than the one in her room. Planning to take a quick shower, she had started taking off her clothes when she heard a door open, then close.

Aubrey stilled.

"Sam?" she called hesitantly, peeking out the bathroom door. "Dean?" There was no response, only footsteps. Slow, and steady footsteps. She quickly slipped her shirt back over her head and took out her pocket knife. It wasn't the best defence but it was _something_. And there was sure to be a gun outside, possibly on the bed, but Aubrey could just hope that the burglar wouldn't get to it before she did.

What did she have to worry about anyway? As far as she knew, she could overpower any regular burglar.

She pushed the door open as quietly as she could, thanking God that it wasn't creaky. Aubrey walked into the room, making her footsteps light. The burglar had a trench coat on. He wasn't facing her. _Perfect._ She advanced quickly, putting away her pocket knife because she wasn't planning on killing the guy anyway.

Before she could do anything else, the man spoke. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said.

Aubrey stilled, but didn't let her guard down. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Castiel," he said, turning around. He definitely didn't look like any robber Aubrey had ever seen. He had grey-blue eyes, smooth features, light stubble and close-cropped hair.

She hesitated for a moment. "What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for Sam and Dean. Have you seen them?"

Aubrey didn't answer. Instead, she frowned, asking, "Why are you looking for Sam and Dean?"

The stranger shrugged. "I have been… acquainted with them."

She scoffed, though unsure. "Yeah, and I have a pet unicorn."

That was when the door opened, revealing Sam and Dean with paper bags of food cradled in their arms. Dean had a donut wedged between his teeth, and Sam was sipping on a cup of soda. Their eyes found Aubrey's, and she shuffled on her feet. She nodded at the stranger. "He a friend if yours?"

"Yeah…" The donut fell from Dean's mouth, plopping onto the ground. Aubrey watched impatiently as he put down the paper bags and stared. "Cas?"

"Hello, Dean," the man said.

"Uh, yeah, hi," Dean replied. "Aubrey, Cas… he calls himself Castiel." He picked his donut up off the floor. "Cas, Aubrey." He still hadn't stopped staring at the man in the trench coat. "She's… an old friend."

She slowly backed away from the man her friends called Cas. "Sure…" Aubrey forced a smile, before turning her gaze to the Winchesters, glaring. "I think you guys forgot to mention _anything_ about your friend here."

Dean ran his thumb over his donut. "Well…"

He couldn't seem to find the right words. Sam saved him. "This is awkward."

"Yep."

Aubrey glared at them for another full minute before turning around and looking at the man in the trench coat. _Castiel._ The name sounded familiar, like something she'd heard before. It was just at the back of her head. She smiled, holding her hand out to Castiel. "Hi, I'm Aubrey."

Castiel took her hand, barely even touching it. "Hello," he said simply.

"Hi," Aubrey said yet again. Their hands hovered in the air for a moment before she made the first move and shook it. Castiel was the first to let go, bringing his hand back to his side immediately. Aubrey turned around and looked at the boys, mouthing _wow_. Dean mouthed back _I know right_. Sam cracked a smile.

"So!" Aubrey said, clapping her hands, eager to let the awkwardness of the night be forgotten. "I think some introductions are in order, hm?" Her eyes flitted from the brothers to Castiel, from Castiel to the brothers.

When her gaze finally settled on Castiel once more, he looked confused. "I already told you who I am."

"I know your name," Aubrey prompted gently. "I don't know who you are." Understanding flashed across his face.

"Well, can we do it while we're eating?" Dean said. "I'm _starving_."

* * *

**reviews are greatly appreciated! 3**


	2. Chapter 2

**first chap. didn't really get much reviews... and this story still has just one follower...**

**hoping that'll change :)**

**I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS, ONLY MY OC: AUBREY MILLIGAN, AND MAYBE SOME OF THE PLOT IN THIS STORY, AS WELL AS FOR OTHER STORIES TO COME.**

* * *

**AUBREY**

Waking up, Aubrey felt like she'd been sleeping for an entire decade. And part of her wanted to believe this, that maybe she'd slept through the entire apocalypse and hadn't died. But the other part knew that that was just an aspiration. She yawned, sat up, and grabbed her wristwatch off her bedside table.

_10 am._

Aubrey groaned, hardly remembering what time she'd been able to sleep the previous night though she was sure that she'd only been sleeping for at least 4 hours.

After taking a cold shower—the heaters didn't work, but she was kind of thankful for the icy feeling running down her back. It woke her up fully—Aubrey got dressed and went out the door. She locked it before knocking on Sam and Dean's, slipping the keys into her jacket's pocket.

Sam opened the door. "Hey," he said. Aubrey smirked, seeing that they were ready to go in and lie to cops and act professional and pretend that they were the FBI. To her eyes, though, they just looked like a bunch of monkeys in business suits. Her smile broadened when Dean came into view behind Sam, hopping around as he tried to put his shoes on.

"Going in early, are we?" She grinned, taking another peek at Dean again who was now putting on his tie. _At least he knows how, now._ "But wait…" Her smile disappeared. She sighed. "I'm not going with you, am I?"

"Nope," Dean answered, still in front of the mirror.

"And why is that?"

"Well, first off, you don't really look like someone who works for the FBI." He gestured to Aubrey's clothes: black jeggings, a red plaid shirt-hoodie folded up to just below the elbows, and flat black ankle boots. Not at all something a woman of the law would wear.

Aubrey rolled her eyes, brushing past Sam so that she didn't have to keep peeking over his shoulder. "Okay, so I'll just change my clothes—"

"Second, we can't wait for you. We actually have a schedule."

"I'll be ready in five minutes—"

"Third, you look too young to actually be with the FBI."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment—"

"No. _Four_, three's a crowd." Dean fixed the collar of his suit before finally looking at her. "I mean, Sam and I have been doing this as long as anybody and we've kind of gotten used to _not_ being cramped in the car—"

"Dean, if you didn't want anyone getting between you and your brother then why the hell did you ask me to help you with this case?" Aubrey finally said, interrupting _him_ instead of the other way around. Dean stared at her as if she'd just grown a pair of horns. "In fact, you haven't even told me what we're dealing with."

As the brothers glanced at each other, Aubrey reeled her anger back in. She had forgotten just how irritating the Winchesters were at times.

It was Sam who spoke next. "Aubrey, we didn't tell you because truthfully, we don't even know ourselves. That's why we're going to the victim's house. To find out."

"Yeah, and the place is crawling with cops," Dean continued, in a milder tone of voice which Aubrey was thankful for. "We couldn't go in there without costumes.

Aubrey cracked a smile. "Then why don't you want me to come?"

The boys shared another look, and that was when she got suspicious. Her eyes narrowed. "Guys?"

"It's nothing." Sam shook his head, a reassuring smile on his face that wasn't very reassuring—to Aubrey. "Look, after this, we'll take you everywhere with us. We swear it." He had this puppy dog look on his face: furrowed eyebrows, eyes looking up at her—he was sitting on the bed—and the hopeful glint in his eye. Aubrey remembered him having that same look during their childhood whenever he was asking for the skin on her fried chicken.

It saddened her how much had changed in him over the past few years.

Aubrey looked at him for a moment, analysing his words. She smiled. "It's good that you've gotten better at lying, Sammy. But you can't get past me. I'll find out what you brothers are keeping from me, sooner rather than later."

* * *

She sat for an hour in their room—not hers because she was positive that there were bedbugs on her mattress—searching up what Dean and Sam had thought was a case. "Bill Randolph dies from bear attack…" Aubrey read. And the more she read, the more her doubts on the case surfaced.

What was so eye-catching about it? It said that a man was attacked by a bear in his home. His home was pretty high up in the mountains too. It happened all the time! So why were Sam and Dean so caught up in it?

It also said that Bill's wife, Kathy Randolph, had seen the whole thing, but Aubrey was sure that the brothers that talking to her was the first thing they'd done.

And still, they had nothing, only increasing the possibilities of the whole thing being some normal day-to-day problem for people in the country.

Aubrey sighed, putting her hands over her eyes and trying to get her thoughts together. She knew she couldn't just stay there. It wasn't the way she did things. She never liked following other people's orders. The _one and only_ good thing that came out of her parents dying was that she could make her own rules. And that was it.

The only time she worked with other hunters was when her parents were still alive. This was her first job working with other people, and it was an all-new feeling. One she knew she had to get used to if they were going to live through the job.

_But I can't just stay here!_

Then a thought occurred to her, and she grinned.

_Maybe you won't have to._

Just as she'd thought, Aubrey found a paper napkin beneath Dean's pillow with an address scribbled onto it. The address of the victim's house. Hell, the brothers probably had it seared onto their brains already.

"Oh, boys," she chuckled. "You _so_ should have brought this with you."

* * *

The Winchesters weren't lying about the place being under surveillance by cops. Aubrey hid behind tree branches and large boulders, scoping the place out. There were at least 7 cops surrounding the house, and though none of them looked very intimidating, Aubrey wasn't sure she could take out all of them without at least one calling for back-up. She ultimately decided against it, choosing to sneak past them instead.

She found a small gap between their defences by the backdoor. A waist-height brick barricade stood between the door and the cops, and it was perfect. Aubrey got into her hunter's crouch and sauntered to the barricade. She wasn't seen.

With a smirk on her face, she continued to the backdoor. The barricade broke off when it was just a few more yards, and she knew that she had to sprint for it. Or maybe tumble. Either way it was risky.

But to Aubrey, risky was fun.

Giving one last glance over the barricade and finding the cops facing away, Aubrey tucked her arms in and moved in. She ran, but still kept light on her feet. It was still amazing that none of the men had even heard _something_. Aubrey was positive that the grass crunched beneath her feet just a little bit.

_Cops these days._

The house looked pretty old. As Aubrey took another peek at the men guarding the place, she could feel the slippery moss on the logs that were the walls of the cabin. There were splinters jutting out here and there. Cracks had already appeared on the roof.

The windows were grey and matted with dust particles. Aubrey peeked inside and almost immediately saw Sam and Dean. They were standing in some sort of kitchen, holding something in their hands and talking, though Aubrey couldn't hear what about.

She knew that she had to knock rather loudly on the window if they were to hear her, but she knew if she did, the cops would hear her too. _I guess it'd be worth it,_ Aubrey thought to herself. Sam and Dean would hear her and they'd get her out of trouble anyway. _Or they wouldn't._ Sometimes she couldn't believe the amount of faith she had on the Winchesters. She hadn't seen them in years. What if they'd changed?

_Ah, screw it._ Aubrey brought her hand up, just about to land a good hard knock on the glass pane when the sound of fluttering wings was what she heard.

Suddenly there was a person beside her.

Acting purely on instinct, the knuckle that had almost connected with the window pane connected with someone's stomach. Pain immediately flared from Aubrey's knuckle, and she held it to her chest, trying to keep a pained yell in. She finally looked up.

"Cas?" she gasped, louder than necessary.

"Hello, Aubrey," he said simply, the deep of his voice contrasting against the sounds of the woods.

The angel didn't look physically hurt by her punching him in the gut at all. "I'm so sorry—"

She stopped when a cop yelled something from the distance: "Hey! Did you hear that?"

"Shit." Aubrey rapped loudly on the window five times, using the not-wounded hand. Sam and Dean looked at her in confusion, but she mouthed the word "help". Then someone pulled her away from the window, grabbing her by the elbow.

The cop said, "What are you doing here? You know this place is under investigation."

Aubrey didn't say anything. She looked behind her and saw another cop following them, pulling Cas along with him. Needless to say, the angel didn't struggle. He just looked very perplexed about the whole thing, like it was a puzzle he couldn't solve. Aubrey wished she was as calm as him.

"Hey!" The cop shook her, bringing her back to reality. She hadn't realized she was staring at Castiel while the cop ranted on to her. "He your boyfriend?"

He shook her again, and Aubrey glared. "What the hell do _you_ thi—"

"Aubrey?"

She reeled herself back in; realizing who the voice belonged to.

"What are you _doing_ here?" Dean said. Aubrey heard footfalls behind her and pulled her arm roughly out of the cop's grip, still glaring. "I thought I told you to stay at home!"

The cop looked over her shoulder, to the brothers who were now, she felt, just behind her. "You know this girl?"

"She's my juvenile niece," Dean answered, putting his hand on Aubrey's shoulder. She shrugged it off with a scowl, acting like the perfect 'juvenile niece'. "She doesn't like _listening_ to people very much."

The cop in front of Aubrey frowned, looking down at her. "I noticed." He looked once again over her shoulder, this time nodding at Castiel. "Who's he, then?"

"I don't know," Dean answered, making Aubrey look back at him with a questioning frown. He raised his eyebrows, not looking at her but making it obvious that he wasn't going to answer that question. She had to answer for herself. But honestly, she didn't know what she was supposed to say.

So, she rolled her eyes and looked down at her feet, going with the obvious thing. "My boyfriend…" Aubrey grumbled.

Dean gasped behind her. "I'm sorry?"

With a loud huff, she repeated herself. "He's my boyfriend."

"You didn't know she had a boyfriend?" the cop asked Dean.

"She's just staying with me for the week. I didn't know she'd call her boyfriend."

"Okay then…" the cop stared at Aubrey. She had backed away from the conversation, coming to stand by her supposed "boyfriend" who was listening in with furrowed eyebrows.

"Well," the cop continued, "Did you get everything you need?"

"Yes, we'll be leaving now." It was Sam.

The cops let them go without another word, though Aubrey could feel their judgemental stares boring into her back. They were probably contemplating on the idea of her turning into a criminal. Little did they know that she already had a criminal record. But they knew nothing about what they did. They knew nothing about what all the hunters worked so hard for.

When they finally reached the car, Dean looked at her with a sarcastic smile. "You followed us."

"Yes, I did."

"Why?"

"I got bored."

The brothers shared an exasperated sigh, making her laugh. "What? You two should have expected something like that from me. Or did you forget who filled your bags with rotten eggs?"

"No," Sam said, crinkling his nose. "I did not forget that."

"Well, fine." Dean rubbed his face. "Let's just get back to the motel. We think we might know what we're dealing with."

Aubrey opened her door. "Okay. What is it?"

The hunter just looked at her. "I'll tell you once we get back to the motel." He was just about to get into the driver's seat when his eyes glued to something behind Aubrey. She looked behind her and found Castiel walking away from them.

"Hey, Cas!" Dean called, making the angel turn around with a curious look on his face. "Aren't you gonna ride in the back with your girlfriend?"

Aubrey had to admit, Dean Winchester knew how to lighten the mood. "You don't have to!" she yelled to the confused angel, grinning from cheek to cheek as she plopped into the backseat.

She didn't know what Dean had said to get Castiel to say yes. They all knew that the angel was obsessed with finding God. But before she knew it, he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with her, looking very awkward. Aubrey couldn't help but grin when he said to her, "I didn't know we were together."

"We aren't," Aubrey whispered back, making him even more confused. Sam and Dean weren't joking about him not understanding the concept of lying. "I'll explain later."

The rest of the car ride went on with silence, and without Castiel's questions keeping her distracted, Aubrey started checking off her list of supernatural creatures that she knew about.

* * *

**reviews are GREATLY appreciated. ~hugs and kisses from ellesmer~**


	3. Chapter 3

**new chapterrrr! hehehehe**

**(has nothing else to say so just sneaks away and turns a tight corner, but not before yelling over her shoulder: I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL, OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS! ONLY MY OC: AUBREY MILLIGAAAaaaaann... *disappears*****)**

* * *

**AUBREY**

"A Trickster? Never heard of it."

They were back at the motel, _finally_ discussing what they had been pitted with.

Dean told her it was a trickster, though the way he said it, "the trickster", made it seem like there was only one. When she asked about it, Dean just shook his head, smiling. "We've crossed paths with him before and trust me when I say, this is our same son of a bitch." And it wasn't the happy kind of smile either. It was bitter, and rueful. Aubrey knew that something had happened between them and this trickster that they _also_ hadn't told her about.

"Bobby says that Tricksters are very rare." She sat cross-legged on the bed, a pillow on her lap, listening intently as Sam said, "There's Loki in Scandinavia, and Anansi in West Africa. Their killing methods are very… humorous." He hesitated as if the last word wasn't what he was aiming to say. Aubrey made a mental note. _Okay, killing methods are _humorous;_ in other words, deadly and annoying and highly ironic._

"Okay…" Aubrey's eyebrows furrowed together, her thoughts flying about freely in her head because these boys obviously knew more about the thing than her and she was still confused. "What makes you say this thing we're dealing with is a Trickster, then?"

Dean said, "Because when I searched up Bill Randolph's supposed _bear attack_, it said that he had quite a temper. Two accounts of spousal battery, bar brawls, and court-ordered anger management sessions. You might say you… wouldn't like him when he's angry."

Aubrey smirked, fiddling with the tip of the pillow. "So you think the Trickster somehow turned himself into Bruce Banner?"

"Yes, _and_," Sam added. "It definitely fits because when we checked out the house there was a giant eight-foot wide hole where the front door used to be. Almost like a…"

"A Hulk-sized hole," Aubrey finished for him, looking up from her pillow. Sam nodded. "Okay, so we got a hole in the house, and a coincidence. I'm gonna need more than that, guys."

"Bill's wife Kathy was there when her husband was killed and could've sworn that it was the Hulk that killed him," Dean offered. "And Tricksters have a sweet tooth."

Aubrey stared at him, confused. "So?"

"We found these in the crime scene." From his jacket's pocket, Sam pulled out eight pieces of candy wrappers and handed it to Aubrey's outstretched hand. She inspected them, finding the wrappers familiar. Yep. Definitely flat tops.

"Okay then, a Trickster it is," Aubrey said, setting down the candy wrappers. "Now how do we kill it?"

Sam leaned forward from his seat to my right. He frowned. "Kill it?"

"Yeah, _kill it_. You know, like what we do to most sons of bitches we find killing people for fun?"

"Aubrey, I was kind of thinking that maybe we could… _talk_ to him."

Now Aubrey wasn't really sure anymore. "Is he friendly?"

"No, he isn't _friendly_," Dean answered in a booming voice, making Aubrey raise her hands in a sign of innocence. Sam clearly said something wrong, now they were going to start a fight. "Sam, why would you want to _talk_ to him? The bastard killed me a thousand times back in Mystery Spot!" Another thing they failed to mention to her.

"Look, think about it, Dean." Sam pulled out his convincing-the-devil face, and Aubrey couldn't help but smile. "He's one of the most powerful creatures we've ever met. Maybe we can _use_ him."

"For what?" Dean didn't look swayed, but Aubrey was listening.

"Okay, Trickster's like a Hugh Hefner type, right? Wine, women, song—maybe he doesn't want the party to end. Maybe he hates this angels-and-demons stuff as much as we do. Maybe he'll _help_ us."

"You're serious?"

"Yeah."

"Dean, maybe Sam's right," Aubrey finally cut in, forcing the boys to stop their argument and look at her. "I mean, he's got a point. From what I've heard from you two, maybe the Trickster _would_ side with us."

Dean started, "Aubrey, you wanna _ally_ with the _Trickster_."

She sighed, rubbing her face in her hands. "Well, when you put it like that it doesn't seem like a good idea—"

"It isn't!"

"—but what have we got to lose?"

"He'll kill us!" Dean interjected, his hands flying wildly in the air. "The Trickster is bloody, and violent, and has killed people for a friggin' bottle of soda."

"Dean, would he really kill us for asking for his help?" He was about to cut her off but Aubrey didn't let him. She continued, "If we don't make a move against him, maybe he won't try and make a move against us."

"_Maybe_," Dean said, emphasizing the word. "What if he does?"

"Then we fight," Aubrey said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Sam was beaming, looking at his brother who looked to be contemplating the idea. He shifted from foot to foot.

He finally made up his mind. "Fine. We'll _talk_ to the guy." Aubrey high-fived Sam. "But if he even _takes out a friggin' knife_, I'm gonna kill him."

"I don't doubt it."

* * *

When the boys finally finished explaining the Trickster's weakness—a wooden stake dipped in the blood of a previous victim—they spent the rest of the day looking for forearm-length wood and sharpening the edges. All the while, Sam listened in on a police scanner, waiting for anything suspicious to come by that might be the work of our guy.

"Looks like we won't be getting help from your angel buddy, huh?" Aubrey stopped what she was doing, looking up from her stake and staring at the spot where the angel had been sitting on when they arrived. He didn't stay very long. Aubrey had just finished saying something to Dean, and when she turned to look at Castiel again, he was gone.

The sound of Dean's knife cutting across wood stopped. He said, "If we get in trouble, he'll show up. He always does." There was a sense of trust in the elder brother's voice. He continued shaving the wood.

"You trust him very much, don't you?"

"The guy hasn't left us to die yet."

Aubrey smiled. "And he won't. I'm sure of it."

Suddenly, Aubrey heard static. _"Um, Dispatch?"_ a man's voice said, coming from the scanner. Sam picked it up. _"I got a possible 187 out here at the old paper mill on Route 6?"_

_"Roger that," _another man's voice said._ "What are you looking at there, son?"_

_ "Honestly, Walt, I… I wouldn't even know how to describe what I'm seeing. Just—send everybody."_

_ "All right, stay calm, stay by your car. Help's on the way."_

The scanner went dead, and the three hunters shared a look. "That sounds weird," Dean said, continuing to sharpen his stake.

Sam asked, "Weird enough to be our guy?"

"That's him."

* * *

Finding the warehouse was easy enough. It was massive, though smaller, Aubrey was sure, than other warehouses. It was abandoned as well. The walls had deteriorated, almost all the windows were broken, and rust had appeared wherever there was metal. The air was cold, and to their right where the forest started, mist gathered around the trees.

The most unnerving fact was that there was no one else around.

"There was a murder here, and there are no police cars. There's nobody," Dean stated, opening the trunk as he looked around. "How's that look to you?"

"Crappy," Sam answered. Dean took out three flashlights and three stakes, handing one of each to Aubrey, who stared up at one of the windows of the warehouse.

She felt some kind of presence inside. No doubt it was the Trickster. But something wasn't right…

Aubrey trailed behind the two, having this unsettling feeling in her gut. She looked up at one of the windows again, and her heart stopped.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe something had been in her eye, but she could have sworn that she saw the darkness inside the warehouse _flicker_. That just didn't happen. _Darkness_ didn't _flicker_. Lights flickered, not the other way around.

So either there were still light bulbs inside with some juice left, or they were walking straight into some sort of trap.

"Wait!" Aubrey yelled, taking off into a full sprint for the Winchesters. Sam and Dean looked back, but they were already through the doorway. The door slammed shut behind them.

Aubrey ran into the door full force, banging on it with her fist and yelling. "Sam! Dean!" No reply came. She continued banging against the wood, but to no avail, and after a while she just stopped altogether, gathering her thoughts.

The Trickster wouldn't kill them immediately, right? Sam and Dean told her that Tricksters liked to play with their victims' minds before finally letting them die, and though it wasn't such a reassuring thought, it was better than nothing. Aubrey took a deep breath, pulled her foot inwards to her body and, with all the force she could muster, kicked the door. It flew open with a loud bang, and Aubrey ran inside.

The place was completely empty. Only pieces of broken floorboards and broken windows were on the floor. Nothing else.

Sam and Dean were gone.

* * *

For the next three days, Aubrey drove _everywhere_.

Around town, across town, _through_ town, in buildings, and beneath the streets. She broke through walls and searched basements, not even making an effort of hiding her handiwork. She ran on 4 cups of coffee a day and barely slept at all.

Dean had brought the keys of his Impala with him so Aubrey couldn't drive it back to the motel. She left it there by the warehouse. Who would go all the way there just to steal it anyway?

By the time she'd finally given up, it was late in the third day and the whole town was sleeping. Lights were out except for street lamps. Aubrey sat beneath one—though the more appropriate word was that she _collapsed_. The cold metal of the lamp bit into the bare skin at the nape of her neck.

The night was cold, colder than most. Aubrey could see her breath come out of her mouth in cool wisps. She huddled closer to the streetlamp, cold, though the metal base offered her no warmth. She hadn't brought a jacket.

Aubrey was exhausted. She was. But she also wasn't going to stop looking. Her body tingled, knowing that the boys were still alive. They were smart, smarter than they let off. They would figure something out. Although it would have been better if they escaped, somehow, on their own, but the best she could ask for was that they stall for more time.

Tricksters were cunning, and for them to be cunning, they had to be intelligent. Whoever captured Sam and Dean would be smart enough to know that they would try to escape. She hoped that the Winchesters wouldn't do anything stupid, but then her heart dropped into her stomach when she remembered that _everything_ the Winchesters did was stupid.

A small smile played on her lips as she remembered the first night she'd spent with them. She and the boys were drinking, laughing even, as they recalled the many times Castiel had saved them.

The angel, to everyone's surprise, had not vanished. He just sat on a bed, his hands on his lap, watching everything with a glint in his eye. Aubrey knew he was recollecting as well, the many occasions the Winchesters got into trouble and they needed an angel, _their _angel, to rescue them once again.

One time that night, Aubrey stood up from her seat and walked towards a mystified Castiel, holding her beer out to him. He took it, but didn't do anything right after. He just looked down at it, and glanced back up at Aubrey from time to time before looking down again. "Drink it," Aubrey had said with a laugh.

The angel held it to his mouth, before taking a short sip. His eyes flitted to Aubrey's, and he looked like a pre-schooler looking to his teacher for help. For all Aubrey knew, that was exactly what he was doing.

She laughed again and quickly snatched Dean's beer from his hands. He shouted in surprise, but it died in his throat as Aubrey drank, holding the bottle over her head and gulping down the contents in six very large gulps.

When she was done, the Winchesters stared at her with wide eyes, their mouths agape. "Like that," she told Castiel, who wasn't looking at her with an impressed look on his face, but was instead looking as if he had finally understood something. Aubrey wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Go on," she said, encouraging the angel.

Castiel brought the rim to his lips and, looking at Aubrey one last time, drank; and he didn't stop drinking until the beer was completely empty, not even a drop left.

"He's never done that before!" Dean had exasperated, patting the angel on the back with a grin on his face.

"And that, my young ward," Aubrey said, putting her hand on Castiel's shoulder, "is how you drink beer." When she saw the angel's lips quirk upwards in a slight smile, she knew she'd won the angel over. But not enough for him to stop looking for God.

When they went to sleep, Aubrey was still awake when she heard the soft flutter of wings. She hadn't seen him since that night.

_Castiel._

All of a sudden, the lamp post against Aubrey's back wasn't so consoling anymore. She sat up.

That was it! _He_ would help her! He'd done it many times before, why wouldn't he do it now?

Though her head was spinning from exhaustion, Aubrey pulled herself up. He was her only hope. He was _Sam and Dean's_ only hope. He had to come.

Gathering the strength and energy she had left, Aubrey took a deep breath, and yelled at the top of her lungs.

"CAAAAAASSS!"

* * *

***runs into the screen* reviews are greatly appreciated! *runs back out***


	4. Chapter 4

**~singing~ GOD'S NOT DEAD HE'S SURELY ALIIIVE, HE'S LIVIN' ON THE INSIDE, ROARIN' LIKE A LION! ~fades slowly~**

**(so yeah i'm a Christian lol ANYWAY, hope you guys enjoy this one ^^ next chap. we get to see a little of Aubrey's past ;) )**

**I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS, ONLY MY OC: AUBREY MILLIGAN!**

* * *

**CASTIEL**

Castiel was wandering a place known as Phoenix, Arizona when he heard someone calling his name.

_"CAAAAAASSS!"_

Immediately he homed in on exactly where the desperate cry had come from. The voice sounded familiar, and the unspoken presumption of whom the voice belonged to was confirmed when his feet touched the ground of an empty asphalt road; a girl with dusty yellow locks and warm hazel eyes stood in front of him, her nose only inches away from his.

Castiel could feel the girl's breath fanning over his chin. The closeness did nothing to daunt the angel, but the girl, Aubrey, stepped back with a startled yell.

"Hello, Aubrey."

"Jesus Christ," the girl said, surprised, causing Castiel to become considerably confused. Had she mistaken him for the Son of God? Castiel had met Him before, seen His face, and he looked nothing like Him.

"I'm not—"

"Yeah, I know." Aubrey raised her hand to him, and Castiel fell silent, staring at the girl with curious eyes. He had no idea why she looked so familiar, why she _felt_ so familiar. It wasn't her face as much as it was her soul. Castiel felt like he'd been close to it sometime in his angelic existence. Had they met before? He was positive that they hadn't.

The girl continued, "I know you're not Jesus, I was just…" Castiel noticed her brows furrow. Her breaths came out in short puffs, and she was visibly shaking.

Castiel took a step closer. "You are cold."

"Yeah," she said, looking at him as she rubbed her palms together. "Sam and Dean are gone."

The angel froze. "What?" What kind of trouble had the boys gotten into? Castiel knew that the boys were hunting a Trickster. They'd given him a call during the day, telling him that they were going to make a move. Castiel felt that they didn't need his help. Tricksters were cunning, but as far as he knew, the Winchesters had gotten the best of one before. Why couldn't they again?

Aubrey, still shaking, said, "We went to the warehouse. As soon as we arrived, I felt like something was wrong. The window…" She trailed off, a frown on her face as if she was trying to remember something.

"What was wrong with the window?"

The girl didn't talk again for a moment, staring at the ground. Castiel stepped up and touched her shoulder. She jumped. "N-nothing. Nothing was wrong with the window, it's just… I trailed behind them. They went inside first and the door slammed shut behind them. When I finally got to bash it open, they were just… _gone_."

"It was the Trickster."

"I should have been there with them. I could have helped them, maybe even gotten them out. We could have overpowered the thing, right? There were three of us and one of it and if I had only just _been_ there…"

Castiel wasn't listening anymore. He had spent enough time with Dean Winchester to know that when humans were feeling strongly about something, they would not stop talking. Castiel didn't really mind, but time passed by quickly on Earth.

He looked around. The buildings surrounding them were all either empty, or filled with sleeping occupants. Clouds gathered above, and Castiel could see his breath coming out of his mouth.

"We should get out of here," he said. When he turned around, the girl nodded her head vigorously.

"The car's parked a few blocks away. Let's try to get there before it starts pouring."

He nodded; and he might have imagined it, but Castiel thought he saw the faintest hint of a smile on the girl's lips. He didn't know what was so funny about what he had said. "Did I say something funny?"

"Nah," she replied, though her smile grew wider, and in no time she was laughing, having a hard time keeping up with the angel as he briskly walked. The air turned humid around them.

When a black odd-looking car finally came into view—presumably Aubrey's—the rain fell. The drops were light, but many, and neither of the two had anything to cover themselves with. Aubrey stepped into the driver's seat, and Castiel sat beside her on the passenger side. They were both dripping wet.

Angels were warmer than humans. He was well aware of the heat radiating off him. By that time, Castiel and his clothes were already dry. But not Aubrey. The girl drove recklessly down the boulevard, the seat beneath her soaked as well as her clothes.

Castiel stared at her, both in concern and fear. The fact that both her hands were on the "wheel" didn't reassure him. Her eyelids drooped from time to time, and whenever that happened the car slowly trailed off the middle of the road. Aubrey always woke herself up just in time to correct the direction of the car but they were still far from the motel.

He grew worried. "Aubrey." Castiel had only ever said her name once, and even then he was unsure of it. It was a peculiar name.

The girl's head shot up. "Yeah," she yelled, very, very loudly. Castiel's brow furrowed and he laid his two fingers on the girl's shoulder. He could feel the exhaustion weighing down on her mind, drowning her like water. But he could also feel the girl fighting. She was losing, however, and she would succumb sooner rather than later.

Castiel closed his eyes, lending her some of his energy.

"What did you do?" she asked, her voice firmer this time, though she looked confused.

"You'll be able to stay awake for a few more minutes."

The angel heard her mumble a thank you, and said, "You're welcome." She didn't smile that time. The ride continued on in silence.

By the time they arrived at the motel, Aubrey was once again exhausted. Her head was bowed low as she walked back to the room. Castiel trailed a few steps behind her, watching in case she collapsed.

He watched as she leaned left to right while walking, positive that her eyes were already closed. Finally, she reached the door to her room and, with fumbling hands, took out the keys and slid it into the knob. She stepped inside, and Castiel followed. He probably shouldn't have, but he did.

As soon as Aubrey reached the foot of her bed, she fell onto it face-first. Castiel rushed forward, afraid that she had gotten hurt somehow, but when he flipped her surprisingly light body he found that she was already sleeping.

He gently placed her back onto the bed, _not_ face-first because he knew that she could suffocate.

Castiel stood by her for a few minutes longer, drawn by her strangely familiar presence. He looked back in his past, trying to think of any reason why he would find the girl _acquainted_. She was beautiful, and there were many beautiful angels in the garrison, but Castiel had to remind himself that this girl was _not_ an angel.

She was human, and imperfectly so. She drank, and she cursed, and she used the name of God in vain just like any other imperfect human, just like Sam and Dean Winchester.

Why else would he expect more from her?

From what Castiel had gathered the night before, the girl was practically raised as a Winchester. He had found many similarities between her and the brothers.

And now she wanted to save them, just as Castiel did. He had heard the desperation in her voice when she called for him. She was out of options. And, to Castiel's utmost dismay, he felt _guilty_. He felt guilty for not thinking to look for Sam and Dean sooner. He had already felt something was wrong. He couldn't sense them, and only when Aubrey called on him did he start to worry.

His decision was made. And as he walked out the door, Castiel swore to himself and to the girl breathing lightly behind him that he would find out exactly who the Trickster was, and make him pay for ever giving him a cause to feel so profoundly.

**AUBREY**

She had no dreams that night. But when she opened her eyes to find that she was staring right into an angel's face, Aubrey indeed thought that she was dreaming.

"I've found them," Castiel said, his voice as deep and rugged as Aubrey remembered.

Her heart did a little leap inside her chest. "Really? Where?"

The angel said something to answer that question, but Aubrey barely heard it. She was too distracted by the warm breath fanning over her face—it smelled like mint leaves—and the nose only inches from hers and the intense blue gaze staring straight into her hazel ones.

He must have noticed her unfocused expression, because somewhere along the lines of "asleep" and "found", he stopped talking.

Aubrey put her hand on the angel's shoulder and squeezed it lightly, before slipping out from underneath him. She was fully aware of his gaze following her through and through, but she tried to ignore it.

As soon as she was standing in a safe distance from Castiel, Aubrey beckoned for him to continue.

Needless to say, the angel was confused, but he spoke. "As I was saying, I went searching for Sam and Dean last night while you were asleep. I found them inside the warehouse where you said they disappeared from."

Her brain was still foggy from exhaustion and sleep, but she understood most of what he said—mostly embarrassed about the fact that she had collapsed onto the bed right in front of an angel. "Wait, no, that's impossible. I searched that place top to bottom for _at least_ four hours. They weren't there."

"Well, their _bodies_ aren't there," Castiel said. "But I could sense their presence somewhere inside the building. Some kind of barrier blocked me from homing in on their exact position. It was almost as if—"

"The Trickster." Aubrey didn't mean to cut him off, but she couldn't help it. "The Trickster's keeping you from finding Sam and Dean."

The angel nodded his head. "I had intended on going there and trying again but thought it best to bring back-up."

"I'll be ready in ten minutes."

Aubrey was dressed and prepared with a jug of coffee warming her hands in five. The sun hung over them, already in its apex as she drove, Castiel warming the whole car beside her. He explained to her all he knew about Tricksters, which was more than Sam and Dean had ever told her.

She learned that Tricksters were practically gods, able to manipulate time and space, conjure up objects from thin air. He also said that they were incredibly difficult to outsmart, making them almost impossible to kill.

"Thank you, Captain Sunshine," Aubrey had said, taking another big gulp of coffee. "But _you_ can kill it, right?"

She took a second to turn her head and look at the angel, and found his face deathly serious. "I would need a wooden stake—"

"—dipped in the bodies of one of the Trickster's victims," Aubrey finished for him. "Yeah, I got mine at the back."

Castiel nodded his head. "Then yes, I can kill him."

Aubrey beamed. That was the second piece of good news she'd received from him that day, which was more than she had hoped for. She had to admit, having an angel working with you made everything a whole lot easier.

They arrived at the warehouse in less than two hours, though considering the speed limits Aubrey had just broken it made sense.

She made her way to the back of her pick-up and opened it, eyeing Castiel as he stared at the warehouse. "Cas," she called. He turned around and Aubrey handed him her stake.

His brow furrowed. "What will you use?"

Aubrey took her gun out from its holster and showed it to him. "I'll just have to make do with this." The angel looked like he was going to argue, but she beat him to the punch. "We're killing this thing _today_, okay? I won't be strong enough to do it but you are." Aubrey threw a crooked smile at him. "We have to find Sam and Dean, right?"

She closed the trunk and locked it before making her way to the warehouse doors. Castiel trailed behind her, and was still there when she kicked the door open.

She kept herself on high alert as Castiel circled the room, her gun up. "Hurry."

Then something appeared that wasn't there before; a lever, by one of the crates at the other end of the room. Castiel saw it as well and made his way towards it. Aubrey followed behind him.

"I don't know what this will do," he said, examining the rusted thing. "But no matter what happens you mustn't leave the warehouse unless I am with you." He looked at her with stern eyes.

Aubrey met his gaze evenly. "Wasn't planning on it."

Then Castiel pulled the lever down, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

Aubrey expected him to collapse, or convulse on the ground, or _anything_, but he remained upright and she assumed that it was all part of the plan.

Something dripped onto her head, and she prayed that it wasn't bird poop. Aubrey brought her hand up, touched the wet place, and brought her finger to her nose. _Oil._ She looked down to her feet to find a circle of the substance drawn around Castiel, and immediately made a move to pull him out.

But within a millisecond the oil was set ablaze and her ally was encased within a circle of fire.

Aubrey stepped back, the heat reaching her cheeks. "Cas!" The angel remained still, his eyes white, and his hand still on the lever. Aubrey called again and this time something happened.

The angel took a sudden sharp intake of breath, his eyes finally coming into focus. He stumbled backward, but stopped when his foot passed over the flames. He yelled, and the sound made Aubrey reel. She never thought he'd hear him like that.

But she also knew that fire wasn't supposed to be very lethal to angels, so why wouldn't he just step over? Castiel looked at her and met her gaze. He shook his head, and Aubrey's stomach flipped.

Suddenly, another figure was in the room, seeming to have appeared out of nowhere. And Aubrey had to balance herself against the wall because she knew that it was the Trickster. She also knew, however, that she was face to face with a ghost from the past.

* * *

**reviews are greatly appreciated 3**


	5. Chapter 5

**i am so sorry for this being so late ;_;**

i've been sooo busy guys. you have no idea.

our first trimester is coming to an end, and projects are piling up. being in the varsity team, i've been training three times a week every after school for upcoming tournaments (THERE ARE SO MANY. FOUR TO BE EXACT.) and then i still have to find time to spend time with my family.

so yeah, i'm pretty damn exhausted.

i haven't been able to find time to write lately :( which is really sad because writing lets me channel my frustrations and emotions into every single word

basically i'm gonna snap any time soon to anyone who bitches to me.

BUUUUUUT ANYWAY! hope you enjoyed this chapter! :)

not sure when i'll be able to put up the next one, but i'll try to in seven days. ;)

**I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL, OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS! ONLY MY OC, AUBREY MILLIGAN.**

* * *

**AUBREY**

"_You_."

The sharp nose, the thin face, the suave brown hair, the green military jacket… Aubrey knew this man.

This man had met her mother during a two-day trip to Paris. This man had given her a lollipop the first time they'd met. This man had come home and had dinner with them. Aubrey could still remember how she wasn't afraid because she still didn't understand why her father was never home.

This man came and went, but Aubrey understood that her mother had loved him.

But this man wasn't there when her mother died of food poisoning, or when her dad came to claim her, or when it was time for the funeral.

The last time Aubrey saw this man, was the night before her mother's death. He and her mother had been watching a movie in the living room while Aubrey sat in her room, bored with the movie and instead wanting to play with her dolls.

When Aubrey finally raised her head to look at the Trickster again, she knew that this man wasn't a _man_ at all. He was a monster.

"Where are Sam and Dean?" Castiel demanded, looking very sinister inside the ring of fire.

"Hi, Castiel!" The Trickster said, pacing around the circle of fire the angel was trapped in. Aubrey couldn't bring herself to think about how he knew who Cas was. "I'm sorry, but Sam and Dean are kind of busy right now…" He grinned. "I'm just trying to teach them a lesson."

Then he turned his gaze on Aubrey. "Do I know you? I feel like we've met before…" He tapped his chin. "Did we have a fling?"

Aubrey glared at him. "You knew me when I was 4 years old. My mother loved you." Her skin prickled, vaguely aware of a second pair of eyes staring at her. Castiel's. But Aubrey wasn't thinking about an escape plan. She didn't want safety. She wanted answers.

The Trickster snapped his fingers, pointing at Aubrey. "Aubrey! Your name's Aubrey, right?"

She grit her teeth as she said, "Yes."

"Oh, man, _now_ I remember!" He stepped around the circle and walked closer to Aubrey, making her back up. For a panicked second, she looked at Castiel, but he wasn't looking. He was eyeing something above them. Aubrey didn't have the time to look because the Trickster was still advancing.

"Your mom and I met at France! She was the perky blonde thing who walked up to me and asked if I could take your picture." The Trickster seemed to be enjoying himself. He leaned against the wall and stared at Aubrey as if they were long lost _friends_. "Shame about her though, but she was getting clingy."

Aubrey stopped in her tracks. "What?"

He turned around and walked towards Castiel again, looking over his shoulder to say, "She was getting clingy, so I killed her."

It felt like Aubrey's heart tore itself into a million pieces. It didn't shatter. It _tore_. Her voice shook when she spoke. "_You_ killed her?" Her brain tried to look for the missing pieces, but she felt like she was looking for something that wasn't there. She shook her head, unbelieving. "N-no, the police said she died because of—"

"Food poisoning," the Trickster finished. And he was right. But of course he knew that, right? Of course the police had told him what happened. Aubrey's lower lip quivered as he said, "You know, your mother really liked that bit in Alice in Wonderland where the little girl drinks from a bottle labelled _drink me_."

Just like that, all the pieces flew in together, all at the same time, and it overwhelmed her.

Aubrey remembered the nights where she and her mother watched Alice in Wonderland. Her mother would always laugh out loud whenever they reached the part where Alice needed to become smaller. She would say, "It's so ingenious!" Aubrey didn't understand that word at the time.

The night her mother died, Aubrey had found a little vial very much similar to the one from Alice in Wonderland. Never even thinking better of it, she had placed a handwritten tag on it. "_Drink me_" she wrote, knowing her mother would find it amusing.

Aubrey had watched from behind a corner as her mother drank it, and she watched as her mother convulsed on the ground.

The cops had never retrieved the vial.

"Y-you…" Aubrey glared at the Trickster, who was smiling at her, eating a chocolate bar. "_You_ killed my mother?"

"Well, I suppose kid-you wouldn't have understood but _now_? I'm surprised you haven't been spending your days tracking me down!"

Her eyes brimmed with angry tears as she repeated the words, more certain than ever. "You killed my mother."

The Trickster shrugged, and the thin thread of patience and control she had left snapped. Aubrey strode forward to the Trickster and he, not even making an effort to run away, was soon in her grasp. She shook him by the jacket. "You got my father killed!"

"Wha—hey! Let's be fair here. Your dad was killed by a Crocotta."

Aubrey didn't even want to know how he knew. "The Crocotta killed him because it knew that my mother was dead!"

The Trickster looked baffled but, Aubrey knew, he was just playing with her. She didn't care. She was going to kill him. "And _who_ killed your mother again?"

"You did!"

He waggled her finger in front of her face, like an adult telling a child he was being naughty. "Ah-ah-ah, I only _placed_ the vial there. _I_ didn't scribble a note saying _drink me_."

"You—"

"_I_ didn't kill them." The Trickster's eyes gleamed evilly. "_You_ did."

She wavered only for a second. Her uncertainty and guilt was quickly replaced by anger. "I'm gonna kill you."

He took another bite of his chocolate bar. "I don't see any wooden stakes on you, kid." Aubrey looked behind her, to Castiel, and he was holding out the stake she had given to him only minutes before, his face blank.

An unfeeling smile crept up her lips as she turned her gaze to the Trickster again. "Are you so sure about tha—" Her heart dropped when she saw that he wasn't there anymore. Her hands had been gripping onto nothing from the moment she'd turned to look at an angel.

"Son of a bitch!" She looked down, and found the chocolate bar by her feet. Aubrey kicked it away. A heated flame burned through her heart and she yelled, trying to get the painful blaze out, but it was embedded in her like glass shards—

"Aubrey." It was Castiel, calling to her from behind.

And just like that, her anger was gone. But the pain was still there, the glass shards, and it left her a blubbering mess of agony and nothing.

"Aubrey." The angel called her again, and this time she responded.

"Yeah," she deadpanned, finally turning away from where the Trickster had just been standing. "Yeah, okay."

Aubrey used her jacket to make a bridge for the angel over the fire, not having a care in the world to think of anything else. By the time Castiel had stepped over it, the front side of her jacket was charred. She put it back in the flames and let it burn.

She didn't move from her spot, and she was vaguely aware of the angel hovering over her shoulder.

After a few moments, he finally spoke, and she was begrudgingly snapped out of her reverie. "He wasn't lying," he said.

It was more of a statement than a question, but Aubrey answered anyway. "No, he wasn't."

The angel didn't say anything more, and she was thankful for that, but she couldn't help but wish for a distraction, _some_ kind of distraction, because her thoughts had taken a very dangerous turn and she didn't want to become a Weak Hunter.

"Aubrey—"

"Let's just try to get home in one piece, okay?"

Castiel didn't look angry about the fact that she had cut him off two times in one day, but it only gave Aubrey more guilt. "Sorry," she said sheepishly, making her way with the angel to the exit.

Though it seemed, that day, God finally saw it fit to punish her for all the wrongs she had done.

The door wouldn't budge.

Aubrey laughed humourlessly. "You've got to be joking." She pulled and pulled at the door, tried to kick it open, but it stood firm. Castiel even laid his hand on it. Guess what? Nothing.

"Cas?" He looked at her. "Could you teleport out there and drive the car into the thing?" She gestured at the weak, wooden door. "I bet that'd work."

A full minute passed, with the angel just standing there, his face contorted in concentration that it would have made Aubrey laugh if her thoughts weren't… elsewhere. "I can't," he said, his brow still furrowed.

Aubrey cursed under her breath, looking around for any way they could get out. The Trickster son of a bitch must have enchanted the whole warehouse or something.

There were the windows. They could use the crates still left to make a platform. But then how were they going to get down? Then she spotted a considerably wide hole only a few feet off the ground. They could land easily back onto the grass outside without even a scratch.

She nodded towards the hole. "There."

Within minutes, they had successfully put together enough crates for make-shift stairs. Aubrey went first. Just as she'd predicted, jumping down was easy. Even easier for the angel because, for all she knew, he'd been jumping out of buildings for a long time.

The drive back to the motel was filled with silence; except for the time Aubrey asked Castiel if he'd had any luck with the lever. "Did _anything_ happen?"

"I was able to see them, but only for a second," the angel answered, looking ahead with a somber expression on his face. "It seems the Trickster has them trapped in different realities. It changes from time to time. How did Dean put it… a show."

Aubrey raised her eyebrows. "You mean a TV show?"

"Yes."

"Is there anything we can do to get them back?"

"He was very strong. Stronger than any Trickster I have encountered," he said. Aubrey felt his eyes on her. "He shouldn't have known about the holy oil."

She took a moment to think. "Who could have told him about it?"

"Only angels and Archangels know about what holy oil can do to other angels. I've told Dean, but he hasn't told another soul other than Sam and Bobby."

"Well… is it possible that the Trickster could be an angel?" When Aubrey looked at Castiel again, he was staring at her, his eyes sunken as if even considering the possibility was mad. Maybe it was. Maybe Aubrey had gone mad. Or maybe her brain was just thinking harder than it usually did because she was desperate for a distraction.

"Leave it," she said. "Just, leave it."

They arrived at the motel and Aubrey didn't let Castiel in, this time. "We'll go there and try again tomorrow," she told him. He only nodded his head, but he never took his eyes off her. Aubrey felt bad about it, but she closed the door, as gently as she could.

That night, Aubrey did not dream. In fact, she didn't sleep. She spent the whole night thinking about _everything_.

Had she really gotten her mother killed? If she hadn't placed that piece of paper beside the vial of poison, would her mother still have drank it? Aubrey couldn't think of anything else.

Of course her mother wouldn't have drunk it. She would have thrown it away or given it to someone else, which was certainly better than what had really happened.

Deep inside her heart, Aubrey didn't blame the Trickster (but she hated him all the same). She blamed herself. Why shouldn't she have? She was stupid, though young, but she should have been _smarter_. She had let the Trickster _use_ her. She was weak, and stupid, and useless.

She'd gotten her father killed as well.

What kind of daughter could live like that?

Thoughts such as this stayed with her until the morning sun came up, and it was finally time to look for the boys again.

* * *

**CASTIEL**

Castiel didn't need to be welcomed inside to know that the girl wasn't sleeping. Her breathing was too heavy, and the sheets rustled too much.

He pondered on everything he'd learned that day.

The girl's mother had been killed when she was only young, poisoned, and Aubrey blamed herself. For her mother's death as well as her father's. Castiel tried to think of what it would feel like to be in that situation and didn't like the results.

But he couldn't think of any reason why anyone would blame her. She was young, clueless about everything the world contained. Some part of him wished that maybe he had paid attention more to the humans. So many on the Earth had been dejected, some killing themselves to end the pain.

Castiel imagined the girl Aubrey killing herself and frowned, an odd ache in his chest. He wasn't familiar with the feeling.

* * *

**reviews are greatly appreciated! :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**so sorry for the late update, you guys DD:**

**BUT HEY! WE WON SECOND PLACE IN THIS YEAR'S MUNICIPAL MEET (VOLLEYBALL)!**

**HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYY!**

**i do not own Supernatural, or any of its characters; only my OC: Aubrey Milligan.)**

* * *

**AUBREY**

Yep. Aubrey's luck had definitely run out.

Who _else_ would get ambushed by five demons in an alley in the break of dawn while walking back to a motel from a burger joint?

Only Aubrey!

She hadn't brought her car—because she actually _liked _walking from time to time—and she didn't have anything to defend herself with. No demon-killing knife, no Colt, no salt. All she had was a paper bag containing two burgers, a soda, and a gun not lethal to demons—and she was pretty sure that there were only 10 bullets in it. Not even salt rounds. Just regular brass bullets.

So she ran.

Like hell.

Aubrey ran as fast as she could, already having dropped the paper bag full of goods. She didn't need them anymore. Her adrenaline was enough to give her the energy she needed.

After running five blocks, Aubrey came across a grocery mart. Luckily, an empty one. It wasn't open yet. The doors were bolted shut but Aubrey shot the chains dead with her gun. She ran through the doors and slammed it shut behind her, wrapping the bolts once again around the door handles from the inside.

The doors were only made of glass. Aubrey used a shelf filled with potato chips as a barricade. Afterward, she rushed up to the cashier's counter and found huge bags of rock salt inside the bottom drawers. "Thank you, Ohio," she exclaimed before setting to work on pouring the salt lines by the _glass_ door and by the _glass_ windows.

All in all, Aubrey was screwed.

If she couldn't find any Devil's Traps or holy water hidden anywhere, she was going to die. She didn't have a rosary or any kind of holy thing on her. The demons were going to find a way around the salt lines. Aubrey was positive about that. Because grocery marts had storage rooms, and storage rooms had vents and windows and doors leading _into_ the grocery mart. The only friggin' thing storage rooms _didn't_ have was holy water and Devil's Traps.

Aubrey took out her gun. She was right before; only ten bullets, not salt rounds. "Crap… CRAP!"

Suddenly there was a presence beside her and she was startled enough to pull the trigger. The shot rang out, and soon enough there was a bullet-sized hole on the floor.

_Eight bullets._

"Aubrey," Castiel said, his voice deadpanned as always but Aubrey had never been happier to see him.

She put her gun back in its holster and turned to look at him, sighing in relief. "Thank God you're here." Then she noticed his nose was bleeding. "What the hell happened to you?"

"The Trickster. I tried to send Sam and Dean another message, and—" He stopped talking abruptly, looking at something behind Aubrey. She didn't need to look behind her to know that he had noticed the salt lines.

"Wait… _you went there _without_ me_?!"

Suddenly the banging on the doors stopped, and Aubrey knew that the demons had moved on to find another source of entry. An idea formulated itself in her mind and, all her previous anger forgotten, she all but pushed Castiel into Aisle 9, where whole jugs of water were stowed. "I need you to make holy water."

The angel looked at her incredulously. "All of this?"

"All of it."

Aubrey guarded the doors as Castiel set to work. He didn't even need salt or a rosary or anything like that. He just put his hand over the water and recited a short incantation and that was it.

She heard a noise from the back of the mart, and cursed. "You're going to exorcise all of them," she told the angel, who had stopped chanting and now stood beside her, a row of jugs filled with holy water behind him. "While I distract the others, you exorcise one and we just work our way up. Get it?"

Aubrey thought that it was a good plan. She had holy water and a gun—though no salt rounds. But it was enough.

The angel seemed to hesitate. "This plan is likely to fail. There are five demons out there."

"You have any better ideas?" When the angel looked at her with a frown, Aubrey grinned back. "And besides, Sam and Dean Winchester may be experienced, but I've been hunting demons with my old man since I was ten years old."

With Castiel convinced, Aubrey snatched two jugs of holy water off the floor and pulled out her gun. "Get ready."

When the demons rushed in through a small set of doors that was sure to have led to the damned storage room, Aubrey was surprised to see Castiel make the first move. He surged forward and immediately landed a punch on one of the demons, sending it flying all the way to the other aisle. Aubrey shook herself from her stupor—she reminded herself never to screw with an angel—and started spilling holy water everywhere.

The demons had already surrounded her. Aubrey couldn't get it into her head that they wanted to kill _her_ more than the angel who could exorcise them, or better yet, _kill_ them. The only thing that kept them at bay was the holy water Aubrey sprinkled over their faces.

One had managed to get too close, instantly grabbing for Aubrey's throat. Aubrey shot it in the chest. She had done all she could to avoid killing the humans inside, but sometimes it was just impossible.

_ Seven._

She pushed the demon away, making it crash against a rack full of cup noodles. "CAS!"

The angel appeared from behind a shelf. As soon as he saw the demon on the floor, already regaining his footing, he rushed forward and landed a hard punch on the thing's stomach before placing his hand on its forehead. Aubrey looked away, not needing to see further into the exorcism. She didn't need stars dancing before her eyes while battling a horde of demons. In her head, she said, _Two down._

Only three more stood before her. The second jug had drained out, and it took only a moment for Aubrey to realize that she was holding only a gun in her hands. No more holy water.

To her left, five full jugs of holy water sat in a row. Aubrey dived for one, and her fingers had only scraped around the cold surface of the jug when one of the demons jumped on her.

It started strangling her. Her breaths got stuck in her throat, coming out ragged and incomplete. Then the demon spoke her to. "You killed my brother," it said, a cloud of black erupting from its eyes and encasing the whites. "And now you will die."

"Ugly there was your bro?" Aubrey boldly asked, fully aware of two more demons fighting with Castiel behind one of the shelves. She kept going, raising the gun between the demon's eyes. "You can go right back to hell with him." The shot rang out.

_ Six. _Aubrey pushed the demon off her, only looking long enough to see a whole in its head before she made her way to Castiel.

He had already exorcised one, and he battled furiously with the other. It wasn't a fair fight at all. Aubrey watched as the angel quickly overwhelmed the demon, and soon enough there were two bodies lying before his feet.

"There's one over the—" Before Aubrey could finish, he had already slipped by her. The angel made quick work with the last demon, striking its jaw when it tried to make a move against him and placing his hand over the thing's face.

The demon thrashed beneath Castiel's grip. Aubrey went over and pushed its shoulders down just as the incantation finished. Thick black smoke billowed out from the newly-exorcised human, engulfing Aubrey's vision. When the smoke was gone, she was only gripping the shoulders of one of the unlucky humans.

Aubrey sighed and thought furiously for a moment, desperately trying to cling onto the bright side of things. "I only shot two. We're both still alive. That's good, right?" She looked at the angel beside her and found him staring again. "Hey, you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said simply. He had a nasty cut above his brow, but she couldn't blame him. He had taken on two demons and exorcised three all by himself. Aubrey was just the distraction.

Aubrey turned away from him, looking around the half-destroyed grocery mart. At least it was fixable, unlike Aubrey's self-esteem. How many people had she gotten killed? She'd never really thought about it before, but as it turned out, she only needed a wake-up call.

It was Castiel who broke her out of her reverie once again. "We should go," was all he said, but it was enough for Aubrey.

They pushed the shelf-barricade away and brushed their feet on the salt lines.

Once again, Aubrey realized just how much God must have hated her.

After unbolting the doors, she pushed. She pushed, and pulled, and pushed again with all her might but the door wouldn't budge. Even with the help of the angel they couldn't open it. "Dammit," Aubrey cursed. "Is it the Trickster?"

"Yes, he doesn't want us to…" The angel trailed off, staring at something above them. Aubrey craned her neck—which throbbed painfully because the demon had a tight grip—and saw a large crack on the ceiling. She was positive it hadn't been there before.

She saw flashing lights beneath the cracks, and might have even heard people yelling, "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Aubrey narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "What the—"

She was barely able to swallow the bile back down when they were unexpectedly sucked into the crack. It widened, the edges turning smooth and flat.

They emerged from the wide fissure, and before them thousands of people rose on their feet, cheering at the top of their lungs. When Aubrey realized they were cheering at _them_, her heart dropped into her stomach. "Cas, where are we?"

She turned to look at her angel friend and found him just as baffled and confused as she was. "I believe we are in a… wrestling match."

"What!?" Aubrey looked down at her feet and, to her horror, found a pentagon-shaped logo. The initials meant nothing to her, but as she looked around, she realized just _what_ kind of game the Trickster was playing with them. Her jaw dropped. "You're _kidding_ me—"

The crowd's yelling became considerably louder, and Aubrey looked up just in time to see a kick flying towards her face. She was barely able to dodge it, but wasn't able to help the counterattack to her stomach.

She reeled, stumbling backwards and tripping over her feet. When the stars disappeared, Castiel's face hovered above her. "I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch," she said, holding her hand up. The angel helped her up to her feet, and she regained her balance.

His bleeding brow furrowed. "He's human."

"Not him," Aubrey snapped. "The Trickster. I'm gonna kill him."

"We have to find a way to get out of this place first." The angel looked above and around them. "Maybe he—" A flying judo kick connected with his face, and Aubrey yelped.

"Cas!"

Castiel fell to the ground, but was picked up again anyway by a huge burly man with dark skin and a shiny bald head. The man threw the angel to the boundary line, and held him there. Aubrey stared, dumbfounded, as Castiel did _nothing_. The bridge of his nose was swollen from where a punch had landed, and his eyes were miserably drooped low.

The man landed a hit at the angel's stomach, and that was it. Aubrey strolled up to the boxer/wrestler/mugger and, bringing her foot up, kicked the guy's crotch. Almost immediately he lost his footing and steered towards the side as the crowd yelled. "OOOHHHHHHHH!" Aubrey didn't care. _At least he's away from Cas,_ she thought as she made the presumed time-out sign in wrestling matches.

"TIME OUT!" she screamed, panicking as she heard the angel behind her groan. "TIME OUT!" A bell rang, and Aubrey pulled Castiel out of the ring. She made him sit on one of the steps leading up to the cage.

Thankfully, he raised his head. "That man is very strong," he deadpanned, swiping at the cut above his eyebrow.

"Yes, he is." Aubrey laughed out loud in relief. "Look, Cas, we have to get out of here. Can you zap us back?" She looked behind her at the referee in panic, knowing that timeouts were at least only a minute long.

Castiel was silent for a moment before she heard his voice again. "No. This is his world. Only he can control whether we get out or not." Aubrey never thought she'd see it, but a sweat trickled out of the angel's hair and rolled down the side of his cheek.

"Cas." She gulped. "Are you… tired?"

"I don't know why, but I feel like my energy is being… whirl-pooled out of me."

"You've been with Dean too long. That's how he would say it." Aubrey's heart dropped the same time the bell rang out again. The same burly dark-skinned man stepped up to the ring, slapping his hands against his stomach. "Time is up!" he yelled, with an accent that Aubrey couldn't put her finger on.

"Listen to me." She shook the angel gently and he looked up at her with a dazed expression. "You have to try to get to Sam and Dean again. You're the only one who can zap up over there and tip them. I'll stay here and stall as long as I can."

The angel definitely took his time to think about it. The crowd jeered at them to make it faster, and Aubrey catcalled unpleasant names at them. Finally, Castiel nodded his head. Aubrey clapped him on the shoulder and, sucking in the nasty smell of the wrestling ring, put on her best wrestling scowl.

"Bring it on, bitch." The wrestler in front of her growled, and just before the referee could call start, Aubrey looked behind her. The angel over her shoulder wasn't there anymore. With a grim smile, she prayed that her legs wouldn't turn to mush before he came back.

* * *

**bit of a filler chapter, i know, but next chapter will finally have some more Castiel/Aubrey moments Cx**

**reviews are greatly appreciated! ^^**


	7. Chapter 7

**so this one was shorter and more filler than i hoped, and it's kind of (?) boring, and i am so terribly sorry :(**

**also, this story is coming to an end!**

**YEAH! I KNOW! i'm pretty sure there's one or two more chapters before it's over, but mind you, i've written what i think to be my best epilogue yet, and a bonus chapter ;)**

**and there will be a sequel to this, and a sequel for the sequel of this, and so on! i'll be following the seasons of Supernatural, and i'm still in season 6, so no spoilers please :) i would like to enjoy my time with Castiel before it ends (i know it will because facebook is a bitch).**

**ANYWAY, i hope you enjoy!**

**i do not own Supernatural or any of its characters or plot; only my OC, Aubrey Milligan.**

* * *

**AUBREY**

By the time her angel buddy got back, she had only spent two minutes in the ring. And though she felt great, Aubrey took the insanely short time lapse as a bad sign.

Aside from that, she had barely caught a glimpse of Castiel, but when she did he had duct tape glued over his mouth. Aubrey couldn't call for a timeout because it hadn't even been three minutes. "Cas, get in here," she yelled, ducking a roundhouse kick and landing a hard punch at the wrestler's side. "Put him to sleep!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Aubrey saw the angel rush up the stairs and into the ring. While she landed another kick at the guy's groin, Castiel came up from behind him and put two fingers on his shoulder. The burly man fell to his side, asleep.

As Aubrey pulled her friend out of the ring once more, she noticed that the crowd still hadn't stopped cheering. Of course, they were completely clueless on what Castiel had just done but that was for the best. They probably just thought he had squeezed on a nerve or some shit like that. But truthfully, it was his angelic powers given to him from heaven at work.

Who would believe that anyway?

Aubrey led them down the aisle that led to the locker rooms—or at least, that's where she hoped they were heading. She pulled the duct tape off Castiel's mouth as fans cheered at them from their seats, reaching down and asking for autographs. "Sign my shirt!" "Sign my back!" "Sign my cheek!" "Sign my butt!" It annoyed Aubrey to incredible extents, but Castiel only stared at the crowd with a serious look on his face. Hopefully he was pissed as well.

Once they finally reached the locker rooms, Aubrey collapsed on one of the benches and took off her sweaty flannel shirt, grumbling, "Damn bastard was as strong as a demon."

When no reply came from the angel, Aubrey looked up to find him staring at ground, his jaw set and his body unmoving. At first she was going to say "what's wrong", but then she remembered that her guardian angel was _actually_ an angel. And to put it bluntly, she didn't have anything on underneath the flannel shirt except for a tight tank top.

She quickly put her flannel shirt back on. "Right, sorry. Angel. Right." Aubrey cleared her throat. "So, what happened? You found them, right?" The angel nodded his head. "Were you able to tip 'em?"

"Yes, but I don't think we can do more than that. Not in this world."

"Alright, then. Escape, any ideas?"

"No." He frowned. "Frankly, the only person who can get us out of here is the Trickster himself, but I don't think he'd want to considering how much trouble we've caused him."

"Trouble _we've_ caused _him_? We haven't been doing jack squat!"

"He seems to have an odd fixation on Sam and Dean. All we've been doing is trying to get them back."

Aubrey stood up and made her way towards a random locker, wanting to distract herself. She was seriously considering the idea of herself being ADHD. She couldn't seem to stay still for long periods of time. Part of her even thought it would be awesome.

"So, what you're saying is…" She examined the padlock on the locker and took out a hairclip. "We've only pissed him off?"

"You could put it that way."

The padlock dropped onto Aubrey's hand and she opened the locker, greeted by the sight of posters of half-naked women. The stench of sweaty underwear reached her nose and Aubrey gagged, slamming the locker shut.

She almost ran into Castiel but steadied herself just enough to look him in the eye. "Don't open _any_ of the lockers."

"Why?"

"Just—_don't_, okay?" Aubrey waited for him to nod his head, not wanting an angel to follow in her very stupid footsteps, before taking a seat once more on the benches. "So what do you think we should do?"

"Keep looking." The angel looked around, which Aubrey really wished he wouldn't do because even the walls were flooded with very… _unholy_ posters. He didn't seem to be minding those; though by the way his eyes flitted from almost everywhere Aubrey guessed he felt awkward about them as much as she was.

Aubrey stood up. "Okay, look for what?"

She watched, perplexed, as the angel walked about the room, looking behind lockers and underneath benches. "The needle in the haystack," he said, and looked to be proud of it too, because as soon as he said it, he turned to Aubrey with a slight smile. Aubrey, beckoned for him to go on with raised eyebrows—but she was definitely going to ask the Winchesters about that as soon as they found them.

"The only thing out of place," the angel finished. His hand hovered above one of the locks of a locker. There was nothing special about it on the outside. When the lock opened by itself, Aubrey rushed forward. Castiel opened it.

As she suspected, posters of women—now _completely_ nude—and foul smell hit her head on, but she didn't move; because other than the posters and the underwear, there was also a lever. It stuck out from the wall, rusted and old.

_The only thing out of place._

Aubrey beamed at the angel beside her, but still one problem remained. "What will it do?" she asked. Castiel didn't answer but instead made a move to pull the lever down. Aubrey made a weird sound that came from her throat. She didn't even know where it came from but it got the angel's attention.

"Let's pull it down together this time, alright?" she said, putting her hand on top of Castiel's. The angel's skin was warm, soothingly so, though Aubrey sensed that he was uncomfortable. She said, "On three."

"One… two…" She squeezed the angel's hand. "Three."

They pulled it down the same time, and Aubrey tensed, closing her eyes. Nothing. She counted to ten. During those first few seconds, she took notice to the smallest things; Castiel's warm breath fanning her hair, the fact that her hand was still on his, that they were so close together.

Still, nothing happened, and Aubrey opened her eyes. She gulped in embarrassment and surprise when she saw that they were still in the same room. Still in the locker room, located beneath a wrestling rink, that could have been anywhere in the world for all they knew.

Aubrey noticed that her angel friend had gone silent, and her stomach sunk as she thought that maybe the lever was only for him and that she had been left alone. That thought flew by in a millisecond, and disappeared when she raised her head. Her nose bumped into his, and for a moment, a sparking instant, she met his gaze.

His eyes were such a beautiful shade of blue. From afar, they looked as dull as dry street pavement, but people didn't know what they were missing when they just passed by him. It shone like the ocean under a starlit sky, like a gem glowing in a dark cave.

His eyes were beautiful, but Aubrey was the first to pull away. She hated herself for it, but it seemed that the angel didn't notice the ceiling quaking away above them. Even when Aubrey finally tore her gaze away from his, she could feel him staring right at her.

And it sucked that all she wanted to do was live in that moment again, and again, and again, but they had a job. They had to find Sam and Dean and bring them back. Something in Aubrey told her that they were close, _oh so close_.

But still, that didn't change the fact that Aubrey had been working alone for a long time.

The ceiling shook again. Dust fell, and Aubrey took a shaky breath. "We need to get out of here."

When the angel finally shook himself out of his stupor, the first thing he made for was the stairs in the far corner of the room, leading back up to the ring above them. Aubrey's heart broke, but she followed him anyway.

Then the most unexpected thing happened.

Aubrey had been walking by the lockers. And when one suddenly opened with an old decaying body falling out of it, Aubrey couldn't help herself. She shrieked, and the body seemed to wrap its arms around Aubrey's neck. Of course, the scream only lasted for a second but it was humiliating anyway.

Another locker opened, this time the one Castiel was standing in front of. A dead body, flesh and blood and all, spilled out of the locker and onto the angel, but he showed no obvious sign of surprise. He just stepped back and stared at the _plastic_ corpse on the floor, prodding it with his foot.

Aubrey shook the corpse off her, grunting in annoyance, when two people suddenly spilled into the room. One was holding a camera, the other holding a microphone; both were grinning from cheek to cheek. "Are you scared?" the one holding a mic said, and Aubrey wanted to strangle him.

She knew what they were going to say next if she said "yes", so she didn't. "No." She gulped down her anger. "Am I… on Scare Tactics?"

The one with the mic looked very pissed off. He asked again, slower, as if he thought he was talking to a child. "Are you scared?"

"_No_," Aubrey was about to say, when she looked past them and to her angel friend. He was vigorously shaking his head, mouthing the words "say yes".

She cast him a sidelong glance before putting on her best humoured smile. "Yes," she said. "I was _terrified_." Aubrey blinked, and when she opened her eyes again, the two men were gone, the only person there the angel Castiel.

He looked at her with stern eyes. "It's the Trickster. The levers in _this_ world aren't like the one I found at the warehouse. These activate his magic."

"I gathered that," Aubrey replied, rubbing her temples. "_Don't_ pull the levers then. But how are we supposed to get out of here?"

"We keep pulling the levers."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What did I just say? Pulling _one_ was a pain in the ass, now we have to pull _all_ of them?"

The angel craned his neck to look up the staircase beside him as he spoke. "As far as I know, magic can only go so far. If we keep moving forward, maybe we'll reach the end of the Trickster's magic and appear back at the warehouse, where I assume Sam and Dean already are."

"We're in a TV, Cas. There are millions of shows in here. It'd take us a _very_ long time to get past all of them."

"The Trickster is strong, stronger than he's supposed to be, but I know for a fact that only God can make a universe as big as that."

The angel was looking everywhere but at her, and Aubrey couldn't help but feel a bit hurt. She knew she couldn't argue with an angel. She wasn't like Dean, who was virtually impractical. Aubrey thought about it for a minute, before nodding her head. "Fine. But if we have to go through another jumpscare TV show I am _done_."

**CASTIEL**

Neither of them knew how much time passed, not even Castiel. They trekked through millions of shows and, to Castiel's honest curiosity, the girl he travelled with could name all of them.

"Glee," she said, while they were noiselessly 'lip-synching' along with about a dozen teens. A few walked up to Castiel and ran their hands along his face, making him _very_ uncomfortable. He heard Aubrey laughing in the distance.

"CSI," she said, while they were busy examining a dead body left by the side of an empty road in a bustling city Aubrey said was called "New York".

"Nurse Jackie," she said, while they were walking through the halls of a busy hospital. When one of their supposed colleagues collapsed onto the floor, the girl practically shoved Castiel into the surgery room, furiously telling him to "heal the guy" with his "angel mojo". He did so, and they were transported into yet another TV show.

"I'm not even gonna call this one," the girl said, once, while they were sitting in comfortable, soft chairs. A man introduced himself as a "Jimmy Fallon" and started asking those questions Castiel honestly didn't know how to answer. Luckily, Aubrey knew what she was doing and replied to every single one with a smile.

It took all of the angel's strength not to stare at her. When they teleported, their clothes changed as well. And in their current show, she was dressed in a ravishing night-blue dress. Castiel kept his jaw set and stared straight ahead; ignoring the odd glances Jimmy Fallon threw at him.

Castiel kept count of the worlds and platforms they appeared in and moved on from.

When he counted to six, he expected it to end. But it didn't, and they simply stepped into another one of human's modern day fantasies; this time, in a room filled with people of all ages, all dressed in—as Dean would say it, _workout clothes_. Aubrey had put her head in her hands, and when Castiel looked down at her he saw that her shoulders were shaking with laughter.

"Where are we?"

The girl just shook her head, still smiling. "Just go with it."

She didn't know that it was all going on for longer than Castiel expected.

When he counted to ten, however, they found themselves inside a flying vehicle and Castiel felt that something was different with their current situation. He heard Aubrey release a sharp strangled noise from her throat and he rushed forward.

The girl stumbled back, and the angel caught her. "What's wrong?"

"No! No, I am _not_ jumping!"

* * *

**REVIEWS. REVIEWS PLEASE. THIS STORY NEEDS REVIEWS.**


	8. Chapter 8

**late update... i know D:**

**but anyways, exams week is over and i can submit whenever i want now ^^**

**in other news... I'M GONNA TURN 14 NEXT WEEK!**

**HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYY!**

**i do not own Supernatural or any of its characters; only my OC, Aubrey Milligan.**

* * *

**CASTIEL**

Even he could see that the girl was scared out of her wits, but he honestly had no clue why. He knew that they were in a flying vehicle, possibly an "airplane" or a "helicopter". From the pictures Dean had shown him, Castiel ruled out the possibility of them being in an airplane. The space was too small.

So they were in a helicopter. There was a small door in front of him, and it had been opened, letting the wind rush into the vehicle. The draft was fast and heavy and cold. Castiel's hearing became dull, and Aubrey, though obviously panicked, yelled for him to keep swallowing. "It's the air pressure!" she had yelled over the wind.

The angel did as she said, and it felt like a cork was pulled out of his ear. Everything was suddenly so much louder than before. As the girl kept yelling something at the other man who was inside the helicopter with them, Castiel poked his head out of the small door.

Cold wind pushed against his head from his right, but he effortlessly eased them out. He looked down and saw clouds. Behind the clouds, he found a city bustling about its business. Judging by the placement of the sun, Castiel guessed it was high noon.

The fact was partly logical. He remembered that they had found themselves trapped in the grocery mart during dawn. And though it felt like weeks had passed, time really wasn't supposed to be consistent in a Trickster's mind.

He brought himself to think about the Trickster again. When Castiel came into existence, Tricksters still had not roamed the world. They were very rare to come across, and the angel found it odd that one would just suddenly come to the United States.

The Trickster they were dealing with was indeed more powerful than it should have been. Even if it was very old, it shouldn't have been able to create a world as big as the one Castiel and Aubrey had been roaming around in.

So the question came again: What if it wasn't a Trickster?

He turned his gaze to a furious and petrified Aubrey, remembering what she had suggested the day they first encountered the Trickster. _"Well… is it possible that the Trickster could be an angel?"_ That's what she had said.

Every time he thought about it, the very first thought that always came into mind was _No. Absolutely not._ But when Castiel actually stopped to think about it, there was a possibility. A tiny speck of possibility. Fallen Seraphs, he supposed, would have retained their powers when they fell, unlike Fallen Angels whose powers are largely depleted once they fall to Earth.

Again, there was a possibility.

And there was something Castiel had noticed when he first saw the Trickster as well. Like all creatures, the Trickster would have had a real face, hidden behind the human skin he had decided was his. Castiel should have been able to see his true face, but there was nothing. Something had blocked him from seeing.

Another piece of reasoning was the powerful presence Castiel felt when the Trickster had pushed him away from the universe Sam and Dean were in. He hadn't felt power like that since he was touched by…

Castiel was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Aubrey yelling rather unpleasant things to the man who was _still_ trying to make her jump. "NO!" the girl kept yelling, along with the F-word that Castiel didn't want to say.

Though the angel knew that he would have to coax her into jumping, his heart went out to her. She obviously was afraid of something closely related to falling, if not falling itself. He touched her arm. "We have to," he said, yelling to be heard over the billowing winds.

The girl shook her head vigorously. "No!"

The angel looked at her imploringly, though she just shook her head again, and he turned his gaze towards the man. He supposed he was their mentor. "How high up are we?" Castiel asked.

The man—the angel thought he'd heard him say his name was Dave—looked him over. "12,500 feet," he said, before turning to Aubrey again. "You have to if you want to finish the Race!"

"I don't give a rat's ass about the Race! I'M NOT DYING TODAY!" Though she tried to hide it, Castiel could hear the girl's voice shaking. She looked at him in desperation. "Can't you zap us to the ground?"

The angel shook his head, frowning as he tried. It wasn't the first time he did. "This is still the Trickster's world. I can't." He stared as the girl tried to calm herself down. She took deep breaths, closing her eyes tight and mumbling to herself. Castiel couldn't help but remember the events that unfolded during their time at the "wrestling" world.

He'd never had such intimate moments with a woman before, except for Anna, though even she was an angel and nothing ever happened between them.

Castiel sighed, looking out the door again. "Aubrey—"

"_Cas_," she said, interrupting him with a glare. "_No_."

Suddenly, the angel felt the temperature drop, and it wasn't normal even from their altitude.

**AUBREY**

The Amazing Race. Of all TV shows they could have landed on, it had to have been The Amazing Race.

She didn't even watch the damn show!

And of all the crazy, daring things they had to do to get off the show, they just _had_ to jump out of a plane. The fact that they were going to be wearing parachutes did nothing to appease her panic.

Aubrey had always been afraid of heights. She didn't know why. It was kind of stupid for a very experienced hunter, who wasn't afraid of ghosts or demons or zombies, to be afraid of _heights_. She didn't know whether she was afraid of heights, or falling.

All she knew that every time she looked down from really high up, her stomach would twist and her hands would start sweating like crazy.

Now, life was asking her to _jump out of an airplane _with only a_ parachute bag _to keep her from_ hitting the ground _with a_ splat_. When was she going to get a break?

Their instructor, David, snatched up what Aubrey presumed to be parachute bags from the floor of the still-moving plane and held one out to her. She shook her head, shoving it away. "I'm not jumping," she told David yet again.

"Take it."

Aubrey looked at the angel over her shoulder with a glare. "Cas, I'm not—" Then she stopped herself. Because he was giving her what Dean had called _the look_. Dean had also said that the angel only used that look if he was _deadly_ serious.

As much as she _didn't_ want to, Aubrey took the parachute bag from David, waiting for the angel to give her a reasonable explanation. But, of course, before _that_ could happen, someone grabbed her from behind and dragged her towards the open hangar door.

Something clicked behind her, and Aubrey felt something cold digging into the small of her back. She felt for it and found her belt strapped onto David's. He dragged her to the door. It was kind of impossible to fight because his entire body was strapped to hers, and he was much bigger than she was.

Nevertheless, Aubrey kicked and punched at him, even scoring a scratch at his eye. But when she heard the man behind her _growl_, she knew that David wasn't David.

Aubrey looked over her shoulder and saw David's face only inches from hers, but his eyes were pitch black. "Demon," she muttered, at first to herself. But then she remembered her guardian angel. "Cas! Demon!"

There was scuffling behind her and Aubrey could only hope that it was Castiel trying to grab a parachute bag for himself; because as far as she knew, they were being forced to jump out of an airplane with demons as their guides. Splendid.

All of a sudden, the man strapped onto her back fell backwards, and so did she, but her fall was cushioned by the able-bodied demon-David behind her. Aubrey looked up and found the angel Castiel standing over them, his hands clenched. She reached behind her and found the strap keeping her leashed to demon-David. Her fingers fiddled for a second with the clasp, but as soon as she found it, she held fast and pressed.

Aubrey quickly tumbled to the side as Cas surged forward, immediately placing his hand on demon-David's forehead. The demon thrashed beneath the angel, but Cas muttered the exorcism so quick that the thing barely had time to land a punch before it was banished from now-normal David's body.

Black smoke engulfed the entire inside of the helicopter, but as soon as it was gone and the plane lunged sideways, threatening to spill the two hunters out of the hangar door, Aubrey knew that the pilot was possessed as well.

She slipped to the ground and fumbled for a handhold, at the same time pointing her finger furiously at the cockpit. "The pilot!"

The angel seemed to have trouble moving around as well. He held on tight at the handles by the sides of the plane and slowly made his way towards the cockpit. The copter was still tilted sideways, and everything else in the small space fell out the hangar door: water bottles, duffel bags, a pair of headphones.

Four parachute bags had already threatened to fall out. Aubrey was barely able to catch two. She stopped one by stretching her leg out, stopping its fall. She stopped the other using the same method, though she had basically karate-kicked it to the other side of the cabin, where the strap caught on the handle of the bench.

Aubrey could have said that she meant for it to happen, but truthfully, it was sheer dumb luck.

When the copter finally levelled out, Aubrey's heart pounded against her chest and her breathing was heavy. She dropped the bags to the floor, letting her arms hang limp at her sides. Eventually, the angel made his way out of the cockpit. His lips were moving, and Aubrey took a large gulp of saliva. Her ears popped, and she could hear again.

"Say that again?" she told Castiel.

"The pilot's dead," he shouted over the wind. "And before I exorcised him the demon said that we were way off course."

Aubrey took a deep breath, clutching the bags to her chest as she pulled herself up and looked out the hangar door. Bile rose up instantly and she looked away, turning her gaze instead to the angel. "We still have to jump, don't we?" He nodded, and though she was still shaking, Aubrey threw him a parachute bag. "You know how to use one of those?"

"No."

"Good. Me neither."

They helped each other figure out which locks and clasps went where and once they were done, all of Aubrey's previous adrenaline had already died down, leaving her scared witless once again. Her heart rate sped up again as she forced herself to look out the hangar door.

This time, she held her ground, though her hands went white by gripping the sidebars so tightly. "Hey, Cas?" She waited for the familiar heated sensation that was there every time he looked at her. "Have you ever jumped from this high before?"

"Higher," the angel replied.

"Right, sorry." Aubrey smiled sheepishly at him. "You know what to do, then? Once we jump, I mean."

"I think so."

"I suppose that's the best we can get." Aubrey sighed, and looked at the angel _literally_ over her shoulder. "You ready?" She supposed that she should have been asking herself that question, but she didn't want to look stupid in front of a messenger of God.

Cas fiddled with the straps tied around his abdomen with a concerned look on his face. He didn't answer, and some part of Aubrey expected as much.

So, sucking in her gut and praying to God—or gods—she let go of the bar handles and let herself fall.

Aubrey had had her fair share of dreams where you felt like you were falling. And even though the feeling only lasted a second, she would always wake up with a loud yelp.

That feeling, compared with jumping out of a helicopter approximately 12,000 feet above the ground, was nothing; a drop of rain in a vast ocean of saltwater.

Aubrey had started yelling as soon as she felt her body leaving the cramped space of the copter. But, to her surprise, the yells eventually died down, replaced by vigorous, adrenaline-filled laughter.

The first few seconds were very frightening, for Aubrey more than for the angel who had apparently fell from higher places. Her stomach clenched as soon as the wind rose up to her face, blowing her hair backwards. She didn't have a helmet, though something told her that it would have felt more reassuring if she wore one.

Without the ground touching her feet, it was a whole new experience for her. Falling from such a high spot was definitely much better than falling from only a few feet up the ground. But 12,000 feet sort of gave you enough time to get used to it.

Aubrey couldn't hear anything, but she was positive that she was laughing.

It didn't feel like she was falling. Nothing passed by her, only the clouds, and they were large enough to grant Aubrey the image that she had passed by them in a slow rate. Aubrey took a moment to look over her shoulder. Castiel had his eyes closed, a slight smile on his face, and his arms spread.

To Aubrey, he looked like a bird that couldn't fly and was happy about it.

Breathing was surprisingly easy, but the wind was cold enough to give Aubrey's sinuses a shock. A kind of quiet feeling passed over her, and for God knows how long, she couldn't feel anything else but the wind pushing against her cheeks.

She might have yelled something along the lines of "son of a bitch" out of pure bliss, but it was quickly lost in the wind.

Eventually, though, the unbelievably thick clouds part below them, and to Aubrey's horror, instead of finding plain green fields of grass, or a huge walkway of soft, cushioned asphalt, a vast ocean of clear blue water was positioned beneath them. Aubrey looked left and right, though no sign of land stood for thousands of miles.

All of a sudden, the water seemed to start rushing up to them quicker. Aubrey could imagine a face in the waves, smiling, eagerly waiting to eat them up.

Thankfully, they had parachutes.

"Cas!" Aubrey yelled, as loud as she could to be overheard over the roaring of the wind. "Your parachute!" The angel opened his eyes and for a moment looked confused, but then he looked down and seemed to see the problem.

"Pull it!" Aubrey made a pulling gesture with one hand, the other fumbling for the pilot chute flapping wildly by her ear. Her fingers groped for a second, but as soon as she felt the strap she held fast.

The angel, on the other hand, didn't seem to understand just what kind of situation they were in. "Pull what?" he yelled back.

Unexpectedly, something large and black flew past just inches from Aubrey's face. As soon as it was far enough away, Aubrey saw black wings beating furiously against the wind current. She scowled and turned her attention back to the always _too_ calm angel beside her.

She pointed at the pilot chute she held between her fingers. "This! Pull it!" He stared deeply at Aubrey's hands for a moment before catching his own pilot chute perfectly in his two fingers and showing it to her. Aubrey smiled. "Yeah, that! Pull it!"

Then she looked down and found the water only hundreds of meters away. She didn't know how, but somehow, she knew that that was bad. "CAS! PULL IT _NOW_!"

Aubrey heard the sound of a parachute opening up, but she didn't hear the wind catch. She didn't have time to look back. She pulled on her pilot chute and felt the bag strapped on her bag lighten up.

But her descent didn't slow. Within seconds, thousands of meters turned into two-hundred. Aubrey had just enough time to straighten up, make her feet face the water, and tuck her hands tightly against her chest before she hit the water.

* * *

**so here's my theory on Cas developing feelings:**

**Castiel has been spending more time with humans than before, right? Theory is, he might be developing human feelings because of that. He might even have fallen in love with Anna before, but now that he's been spending so much time around humans, he could already be half-human. (maybe part of him already believes that God is gone.)**

**but who am i, an insignificant fan, to know for sure? it's all in the brilliant mind of Eric Kripke. ^^**


	9. Chapter 9

**there is a LOT of inner dialogue here; mostly because Aubrey's decision is going to be one of the major ones, and i've been told to emphasize on major decisions. ;)**

**hope you enjoy!**

**I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS; ONLY MY OC, AUBREY MILLIGAN.**

* * *

**CASTIEL**

Everything happened so fast.

One second, the girl was smiling her stunning smile at him, telling him to "pull it". But then she looked down and started yelling at him. "CAS! PULL IT _NOW_!" And he did. He pulled the string he assumed was called the _pilot chute_, and that was when the scene before him changed.

Castiel was no longer enjoying the feeling of freefalling—for it was quite similar to flying if he thought about it—but was instead standing once again on stable ground. The sudden change of temperature and abruptness at which the falling sensation stopped made his knees buckle.

He quickly caught himself, however, and forced himself to look up. The unscratched faces of Sam and Dean Winchester did little to appease his shock and anger; anger at the Trickster who stood behind the brothers in a circle of holy fire. The boys had understood his message after all, and they'd deciphered what the Trickster really was before he did.

"Cas," Dean said. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." The angel barely gave the elder brother a glance, more appropriately glaring at the Trickster. But he could see his true face now, the man behind the mask. "Hello, Gabriel."

"Hey, bro," the archangel replied. Castiel could now see his true form, fearsome to behold, yet when he looked at the archangel with his human eyes he found himself unafraid.

"How's the search for daddy going?" Gabriel continued. "Let me guess: _awful_."

Castiel only scowled. "Bring her back."

"Bring who—" Dean started, then looked around, late to notice that one was missing from their company. "Where's Aubrey?"

* * *

_The water was freezing, as cold as ice. The impact hit Aubrey like landing on concrete, though that was how people described it as. And in spite of all that, her limbs had already gone numb. She'd been able to swim up a few feet from her original fall, but now her arms and legs flailed around like the drowning fish she was._

_ Her lungs burned, for she'd barely been able to take a deep breath before hitting the glacial water. She started swimming up to the surface that was only but a few feet higher from her fingertips._

* * *

"Bring her back, _now_." Castiel said. "Or I'll—"

"You'll what?" Gabriel interrupted, spreading his arms. "You forget, Castiel. I'm still more powerful than you."

"You fell."

"And you rebelled."

Dean intervened, though he too was as angered as the angel. "Listen here, bub. We _will_ fry you like a French Fry if you don't bring her back _right now_."

Gabriel clucked, wagging his finger and pouting. "I'm sorry, boys, but she's not a part of this story."

"What do you mean?" Sam said, walking closer to the archangel.

"Oh, you could call her an intervention between the real juicy parts." Gabriel put on a mischievous smile. "I'm just doing you a favour."

"Just tell us where you put her!" Dean yelled, clearly aggravated. He started wandering around the room, knocking on walls and looking behind crates.

Castiel stood his ground and glowered at the archangel. "Why are you doing this?"

Gabriel stared at him with a smile on his face. "Bro, being an angel and all, I thought you'd know what that girl could do."

The angel frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You're getting slow, Cas." The archangel laughed. Then he took out something from his pocket, a small vial. Gabriel held it very gingerly in his hands. "Do you know what this is?"

The angel held his breath, remembering that he and Aubrey had been falling towards a body of water. Was she still under? Or had she managed to survive and swim up? "No, I don't."

The liquid inside the vial was coloured a fiery orange, and it seemed to glow within its confines. Castiel noticed that Sam and Dean had stopped searching. They were now listening in as well, clueless, but still angry.

Castiel took it upon himself to fix things, and then he would find out what was in the vial. Because whatever it was, the angel could feel waves of energy beating off it. It was important. That was all he needed to know at the moment. "Bring the girl back," he said. "And then we'll talk."

* * *

_Aubrey broke through the surface, gulping down selfish amounts of air while flailing her arms around, trying to get them warm. Before she could, however, metal bars appeared above her head and at her sides, confining her into a space of ten feet. The bars started lowering above her, pushing her back down into the water. Aubrey took another large gulp of air before going under once more._

_ As soon as she did, she started shaking the bars furiously, hoping they would somehow break. But she wasn't The Hulk. She couldn't break nor bend the bars. There were no locks or chains or clasps anywhere. There was no way out._

* * *

Gabriel laughed, clapping his hands loudly and slowly. Castiel saw Dean make a move towards the archangel, but his brother stopped him. The angel couldn't blame him. They didn't know what Aubrey was going through as of the moment, and he did. So did Gabriel. And only one of them actually wanted to keep the girl from dying.

"You just don't see it, do you?" Gabriel said. "This girl is dangerous, powerful! She could destroy us all if she wanted to and all she would need… is this." He raised the vial in his hands, holding it out so the sunlight hit the glass. The liquid inside burned into millions of colours; blue, white, red, orange. The colours of the flame.

The answer on what exactly the girl was dawned on Castiel. He didn't want to believe it, but everything seemed to make sense, then.

"She's a Phoenix, Cas," Gabriel said.

Castiel thought out loud. "She felt so familiar the first time I saw her—"

"It's because you've met her before, obviously. You were so itty bitty when dad made her kind, but you met her once by Canaan, remember? I do. I was there. She had a different body before but the attitude hasn't changed, that's for sure. What she is was one of the main reasons I killed her mother. Not her real mother, duh, but you get my point. The night I left the poison was the same night that I got this." He raised the vial again, which was what Castiel presumed to be Aubrey's Power. "So, should I leave her in there or what?"

The angel was torn. He honestly didn't know what to do. As far as he knew, Phoenixes were indeed very powerful. But they weren't dangerous. Almost every Phoenix Castiel knew, and there weren't many, had been peaceful, mostly keeping their Powers secret and living among humans in tranquillity.

If he knew Aubrey, she would do the same thing.

"Castiel," Gabriel said, snapping the angel from his thoughts. "I know you're thinking that she's still that innocent little gal from millennia ago, but come on! It's the 2000's, bro. She's sure to be corrupted by now."

* * *

_Castiel was nowhere to be found as Aubrey thrashed around in the cage, kicking at the bars. When she looked down she saw a small tag wrapped around her ankle. _'Shark bait.'

* * *

"Cas, what's he talking about?" came the smooth voice of Sam.

Castiel threw the brothers what he knew to be his most convincing look before turning to the archangel again. "And yet she can only bring destruction upon the world with _that_." He nodded to the vial in the archangel's hand. "What will happen if she doesn't drink it?

"Bring her back," he said, continuing before Gabriel could say anymore. "And if she is indeed the dangerous being you so believe her to be… then I will bring her the wrath of God myself."

* * *

_Aubrey's lungs felt like they were on fire. She couldn't breathe. Her throat constricted and tears filled her eyes, though it could have easily just been the saltwater drowning her. Shark bait? She looked around and there was no speck of marine life to be found, though that was only one problem solved._

_ Was she going to die in a cage?_

* * *

Gabriel looked as if he was considering the idea, and Castiel certainly hoped that he was. The angel didn't know how long humans could hold their breath underwater. "Well?"

The archangel looked Castiel over. "I suppose I could let her out… then if she does decide to take her Power back, and you _won't_ kill her, I'll have one less angel to worry about…" Castiel held his breath, waiting for the verdict.

* * *

_Aubrey had run out of breath. Now, she was slamming all her weight onto the bars, though her hits were weak. The metal shook and shuddered, but gave no hints of ever breaking._

* * *

Gabriel smiled. "Alright." He snapped his fingers, and Castiel heard Sam and Dean disappear from behind him, instead running to a rather large puddle by the corner of the warehouse. The stale water churned, and Castiel started running for it as well.

* * *

_Suddenly, there were no bars anymore. Just water. Aubrey surged upward, kicking the sandy sea floor beneath her. She didn't focus on why the ocean she was in was so shallow. She focused on the sunlight dancing against the waves._

_ Aubrey kept kicking and kicking, though she felt her legs slowly turning into lead, g__rowing heavier a__nd dragging her down instead of helping her up. Nevertheless, she kept her eyes glued to the sunlight above, knowing that she was _not _going to die without seeing the sun, the_ real_ sun, for one last time._

* * *

Hands broke through the surface of the shallow water just as the Winchesters reached the puddle. They grabbed them, and heaved, and Castiel sighed in relief as Aubrey's head broke the surface. The brothers dragged her body onto the drier floors of the warehouse as the girl coughed up water.

Castiel walked towards the three, but he did not stop in front of them. He walked on until his foot was a centimetre-deep in the water puddle. The angel leaned down, cupped some of the stale liquid, and walked back to Gabriel.

He didn't need any more of the archangel's provoking nature, nor did the girl. She needed a clear head if she was going to make the right choice; to take her Power back or not.

Gabriel sneered when Castiel approached him, though the smirk disappeared as soon as Castiel let the water pour out of his hands and onto the holy fire. It created a gap between the flames, and the archangel stepped through it.

"Leave," Castiel told him. "_Now_."

The archangel looked at him evenly, before bending down and letting the vial roll out of his hands. Castiel watched as the glass tube made its way directly into Aubrey's waiting hands. Her fingers fumbled for it, but eventually she was holding it up to eye-level, a look of wonder in her eyes.

When Castiel finally looked away, the archangel was gone.

**AUBREY**

Aubrey didn't need any explanations or clarifications. Everything came back to her as soon as the vial touched her fingertips.

She stared down at the glass tube, remembering everything her mother had told her when she was still a little girl, before they even met Gabriel in Paris. "You're something very special," mother had always told her. "You were born to do great things."

"You're a Phoenix, Aubrey. My little bird."

At that time, Aubrey was just four-years old and she understood nothing of what the woman said. If anything, she always suspected that she was just trying to make her laugh. Because Aubrey always did whenever her mother told her stuff like that.

When her mother died, and Aubrey was still very young when that happened, she forgot all memories regarding what the woman used to tell her. She grew up under the custody of her father and dismissed the seemingly-silly stories, keeping her head in more pressing issues.

Aubrey grew up to be a hunter, and during all her time doing the job and researching about different creatures, she had never heard _anything_ about Phoenixes.

She knew that they were birds, _colourful_ ones, that died—whether by fire or by natural causes, Aubrey didn't know—and rose again from its ashes, forced to live life over and over again, dying and coming back to life.

As far as Aubrey had known, she was no Phoenix. She was a normal human being who hunted monsters and ghosts, not an infinite being of feather and fire.

But even as she tried to resist considering the idea, Aubrey could feel the vial burning in her hands. Such power could have broken through the thin glass, but she resisted. It was a big decision, taking her Power back or not. Aubrey tried to look at it from two points of view.

What if she uncorked the vial? What if she gave herself back her Power? She could be powerful, feared, but was she really going to use her powers for those reasons? Would she really level a town with a wave of her hand? Her entire life, she'd been thriving to stop those things from ever happening.

Did she really want to become the monster? Did she really want her fellow hunters, her _friends_, to want to kill her? At the same time, however, she could use her Powers for good, using them to her advantage while hunting. She would be stronger, not so easy to be put down.

Aubrey tried to look for the bright side of choosing that option, and found only one other: _I could kill him._ _I could kill Gabriel._

Now that she held her Power in her fingertips, she remembered that Phoenixes were just as strong, and almost just as old, as angels. It was kind of weird to think that maybe one other of her kind had been there when the world was created and she didn't know about it, but she put that out of her head. It gave her a migraine.

But if she _did_ take back her Power… she could really do it. She could kill the archangel.

_Okay,_ Aubrey thought. _Next say-so please._

What if she _didn't_ uncork the vial?

There wasn't much to see from that point of view. Without her Power, Aubrey would stay the same. She'd continue her work as a hunter, and stay that way until one of the sons of hell finally got to kill her. She'd keep fighting for human kind, knowing that she was a creature herself.

She'd hide her power some place no one would ever find it. Maybe even let it sink to the bottom of the Pacific.

When Aubrey thought about it, the second choice didn't seem so bad.

But when she held the vial once more in her hands, feeling the energy surge through her like nothing she'd ever experienced before, Aubrey was back to square one.

She walked to the puddle by the far corner of the room, where she'd apparently almost drowned in. Reflected on the musty rain water was something Aubrey really didn't want to see.

Tongues of flame enveloped her, blue and red and orange and white all mixing together to form an aura around her body. Above her head, there was a glowing halo of fire. Its light cast shadows over her face, making Aubrey's hair look like it was burning from the roots, when in fact her hair was fire itself.

Aubrey looked at her eyes and found they were a bright gold. The vial in her hand pulsed golden waves as well, and with each wave, the aura around Aubrey's body stretched outwards, like tendrils of flame.

When she straightened her back, Aubrey watched her reflection with captivation as wings sprouted from her back. They seemed to be made of pure light. They slowly extended, each wing longer than Aubrey's full height.

She looked like an angel on fire. Aubrey looked down at her reflection in the water one last time before putting the vial into her pocket. Immediately, her image turned normal. The aura's pulsing died down, her wings faded, and soon enough Aubrey was staring at a perfectly average mirror image of herself.

Staring down at herself and taking in the image of herself wearing ripped skinny jeans, black boots and a plain white T-shirt folded at the sleeves, Aubrey realized that she liked the way she looked without the fiery auras and golden wings.

But she knew there was still a decision to be made, and as she walked back to the open door that would lead her outside, Aubrey decided to trust her gut, and to make the choice when the time was right.

Aubrey forced a weary smile when she walked outside, and right after thanking the angel who was _definitely_ watching over her, she looked around for a moment before settling her gaze back to her friends. She sighed. "I need a drink."

* * *

**epilogue coming soon ;)**

**REVIEWS PLS! :(((**


	10. EPILOGUE - What It Is To Be

**I AM VERY PROUD OF THIS YOU GUYS. I HOPE YOU LIKE IT.**

**and yes, this is the last chapter for this story. :) for everyone who's even reading this, do not fret. there will be more sequels to come. ;)**

**I DO NOT OWN SUPERNATURAL OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS; ONLY MY OC, AUBREY MILLIGAN**

* * *

**CASTIEL**

**8:14 pm**

They took Aubrey to what Dean called a "bar" and bought drinks. To the angel's dismay, the girl didn't talk as much as he hoped. She drank her mug of beer quietly, only occasionally looking up to throw him a small smile. Castiel didn't return them.

He thought about what Gabriel told him, about her making the right choice or not. Honestly, Castiel wasn't sure he could put her down if she ever decided to drink the vial's contents. Why did he have to? The girl was innocent. As far as the angel knew, she wasn't going to turn into that kind of Phoenix that wanted to hurt people.

After about half an hour of silence and awkwardly short conversations, Aubrey finally spoke up.

Castiel watched as she put her mug down on the table and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "How's about we play a few rounds of Never Have I Ever?"

Dean laughed loudly beside Castiel. "I thought she'd never ask," he muttered, clapping him on the back as the girl had a quick conversation with the bartender. Soon enough, they had "shots glasses" placed in front of them with a bottle of whiskey on the side.

Sam poured the alcohol into their glasses up to the rim. The angel looked at Dean curiously. "I am unfamiliar with this game."

The older brother sighed, didn't answer his question, and turned his gaze to Aubrey who sat across from him. The girl grabbed her shots glass and stood up. "Alright then." She and Dean exchanged seats, and almost immediately she said something Castiel barely understood.

"Never have I ever gone to a brothel." She grinned, and the angel watched in fascination as the Winchester brothers picked up their shots glasses and downed their whiskey at the same time.

Dean looked at him, still making a sour face. "Hey, drink up, hotshot. I brought you to one before, remember?"

Castiel, though very much confused, downed the whiskey in his glass as well without exertion. He looked at Aubrey with furrowed brows. "I don't understand," he said. "You said you have never gone to a brothel, and yet Sam and Dean obviously have and they have to drink?"

"You drank too!" Dean cut in, making his brother chuckle.

The angel kept his gaze on Aubrey, still confused. The girl smiled and leaned closer to him, so close that Castiel could smell her breath. "Exactly," she said. "I said that I've never gone to a brothel, and I never have. But the people who _have_, Sam and Dean, have to drink. Come on, you give it a go." The angel was fully aware of the girl pointing a look at Sam and Dean, but he tried to ignore, instead thinking about what he was about to say.

"Never have I ever… prayed to the Lord for guidance."

The brothers laughed, and so did Aubrey, before downing another shot of whiskey. The girl looked expectantly at him. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Haven't you ever prayed to the Lord for guidance before?"

Castiel thought about it for a second, before understanding what she was trying to say. He downed his shot and Aubrey clapped, laughing. "He's got it!"

The next half hour ensued with quirky remarks and shots of whiskey.

"Never have I ever had sex."

"Never have I ever died." Sam and Dean had clinked their glasses together before downing the whiskey at the same time.

"Never have I ever gone streaking." Castiel was unfamiliar with the last word, but he watched as Dean smirked, downing another shot.

"Never have I ever seen a person die." All of them drank.

"Never have I ever killed a witch."

"Never have I ever been chased by a hellhound."

"Never have I ever beaten someone up."

"Never have I ever rebelled against heaven." Castiel was the only one who drank, and it was only his fourth shot.

The girl laughed as he drank, saying, "Cas, you're supposed to mention things that _other_ people have done, not the things you have." She looked as if she was supposed to say more but Dean shared with her a knowing look, and she smirked. "On second thought, keep doing what you're doing."

* * *

**9:30 pm**

Though Aubrey disapproved, and she was as drunk as any of them—except for Castiel, who was only "starting to feel something"—Dean thought it a good idea to bring them to a brothel. Castiel didn't want to as well, remembering what happened the last time the brother had tried to get him to sleep with a woman.

"Oh, come on!" Dean complained in a slurred tone. "We're buzzed, it's late—okay, it's not _that_ late, but it'll be fun! Sam, hey, what'dya say?" He clapped his brother on the shoulder, raising his eyebrows.

Sam rocked on his feet. "I don't know, man… okay sure let's go."

The brothers walked through the doors, leaving Castiel with Aubrey. She laughed drunkenly. "Okay, hey, I am _not_ going in there."

The angel stared at her questioningly. "Where will you be?"

"Waiting for you to screw up your chances of ever getting laid." She grinned, pushing him up the steps and through the door, but she did not follow. In an instant, the angel was surrounded by barely-dressed women. They touched his face and ran their hands down his chest, making him very uncomfortable.

One, dressed in a tight black outfit, pulled him deeper into the building. Castiel thought he could hear laughter echoing outside as he was led into a room with no one else in it.

* * *

Castiel wasn't enjoying himself very much. He took Dean's advice about saying nothing, but he didn't know what to do. His arms were limp by his sides, his legs were rigid, and his eyes looked everywhere but to the girl undressing herself.

He didn't know how he had gotten himself into such a big mess. He shouldn't have let Aubrey push him into the brothel. Parts of Castiel's Grace had already faded away. He wanted to keep his chastity in check for all intents and purposes, though it was hard sometimes.

Like when the girl Aubrey stood so close to him that their elbows brushed together with even the slightest movement; or when she had taken her jacket off in front of him, revealing more skin than the angel was used to; or that one time he was standing right behind her and she turned around and their noses brushed past the other's.

Without really meaning to, Castiel said something to the girl undressing him, something about her mother. The girl slapped him, yelled some very unpleasant things pointed at the angel, and left.

Much to the angel's surprise, he craned his neck to find Aubrey holding the door open, amusement glinting in her eyes.

"Told you," she said.

* * *

**10:13 pm**

Afterwards, Aubrey had all but pulled the Winchesters out of their respective rooms, one hand over her eyes as she did so. Castiel watched from the door, averting his eyes as he saw Dean was naked. Aubrey laughed, still covering her eyes, and exited the room, still laughing. Luckily, Sam was still very much dressed when they barged into his room.

And although the women in their charge weren't very happy about it, Aubrey told the boys to get dressed. "We have to go before the lights upstairs go out," she had said, winking at Castiel before disappearing out the door of the brothel. He cast Dean and Sam questioning looks, but they shrugged as well.

They found the girl waiting by the car, leaning by the door, an impatient look on her face. "Well, come on! Hurry up!" She had bounded up to them and whispered something in Dean's ear.

"You're just full of bright ideas, you know that?" Dean laughed before getting in the car.

They drove for approximately two hours, the only sound in the car the loud music Dean found comforting. Castiel sat in the backseat with the girl, a respectable distance between them; though every time he turned to look at her, he would find the moonlight bouncing perfectly off her hair.

The light shone on her face. Castiel thought she was beautiful.

* * *

**12:05 am**

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"What are we doing?"

Dean rolled his eyes, taking a quick glance at the angel before laying his head back down. "Enjoying the view."

They were sitting on the hood of the Impala. Dean was lying back on the windshield, his hands behind his head. Castiel supposed that it gave him a better view of the artwork above their heads; a beautiful landscape of glittering stars was spread overhead, the dark blue heavenly oceans stretching for as far as the eye could see.

The angel had once heard someone, just a random person he had come across, say that the stars were really holes in the floor of heaven. Of course, that was preposterous. Castiel was brought to life in heaven and he surely didn't remember any holes on the floor.

But he had to say, the person who said that had a very fascinating imagination.

For the night sky did indeed look like dark floorboards, the tiles bleached black. But the night did deceive human eyes sometimes. In his vessel, Castiel could look at anything using either the mortal eyes he had asked for, or the angelic vision he was born with.

During that time, he decided to look at the sky with mortal eyes, and the results were undeniably stunning.

It wasn't the first time Castiel had stared up at the sky. In fact, he did so more times than anyone. Every night, he would look up at the stars and ponder on what could have been happening up high, behind the dark blue sheet of the night.

The angel noticed a movement beside him, and craned his neck to find Sam taking out a bottle of beer from their cooler. During the long drive, Aubrey had given each of them—herself included—pills to get back their sobriety. Apparently it had worked, but Castiel noticed that the Winchesters could never sit still in one place without a bottle of beer in their hands.

Sam threw another bottle to Dean, who snatched it out of the air. Castiel watched him as he drank before looking to the undergrowth in front of them. As soon as they had found the spot and parked the car, Aubrey had walked swiftly away from them without a word. The brothers had made no move to follow her, and so Castiel didn't as well.

He figured that she needed time to think. The angel noticed that the vial of her Power was still in her pocket. She had fiddled with it as she stepped out of the car.

Now they were only waiting patiently for her to come back.

Although, Castiel knew that all of them were watching. Behind the trees and the bushes and the foliage, they could barely make out the girl's silhouette. During the first few minutes, the three of them stared at her worriedly before realizing that she wasn't going to walk back to them for quite a while. The boys had settled themselves down on the car, and Castiel, though hesitantly, followed suit. Neither of them knew why she was so dejected except Castiel, and though the boys pushed him to tell them what happened while they were gone, he never said.

It wasn't his story to tell.

After a while, he heard Sam sigh. "Maybe you should go talk to her," he said, and Castiel faced him.

"I don't think I should."

"Why?"

Castiel's eyes flitted from Sam to the shadow behind the trees, not even too far off. "Because from what I've learned about humans…" He sighed, "Is that they tend to be very quiet when they mean to be."

Dean shifted beside him. "Are you trying to say something?"

"No, I'm just… I might upset her."

The older brother scoffed. "Since when did you care about _upsetting_ somebody?"

The angel was silent for a moment, staring up at the stars, thinking. "I suppose you're right," he finally said, and after a while added, "She needs help in making that decision," even though neither of the boys would understand.

Castiel slid off the hood of the car, his feet touching the ground with a crisp crunch. Without looking back, he put slipped his hands into his coat's pockets and bound towards the girl.

He found her standing in front of a puddle, staring down at the murky water. Not much to the angel's surprise, he saw her reflection depicting the girl in her Phoenix form. Castiel remembered, then, how astonished he had been when the Father first created the Phoenixes. He had unquestionably thought they were as majestic as the sun.

Aubrey barely moved a muscle when he came to stand beside her, but she knew he was there. "So," she said, still not looking up. "A Phoenix, huh?"

He frowned. "It would appear so." Castiel found himself staring at the puddle as well, unable to tear his eyes away. When he was finally able to, however, he looked to find the serious expression on the girl's face somewhat softened.

"The first time we met… the first time you met _me_, anyway, Aubrey-me…" She gulped. "Did you know what I was? Were you able to _sense_ what I was?"

"No… and I find that extremely distressing." Castiel's frown deepened, remembering how confused he had been. Her face wasn't familiar, yet the aura surrounding her was, but for some reason, he hadn't been able to read into the girl's past.

Aubrey scoffed, meeting his gaze. "I guess rebelling against heaven can really do something to a guy, huh?" He didn't know why, but Castiel smiled.

"It has weakened me very much."

He could feel the girl's eyes on him, and cast a sidelong glance. She had a sad look in her eyes, a deep crease on her forehead as she frowned at him. "Sorry," she grumbled, looking away.

Castiel was wondering what he had said to upset her when something flew past overhead. The angel sensed that it was a… _shooting star_, as the humans called it. The girl beside him touched his arm, a slight smile spreading across her face. "Make a wish."

Castiel wished for the very first thing that came to mind, considering their circumstances. _Peace in heaven and on earth._ When he opened his eyes again, he found Aubrey staring up at the night sky.

"And so it was written that the fiery one would be born of heaven and would fall. She would live amongst all of God's creation, dying and rising from her ashes, forced to live another lifetime again and again and again. Never dying, she would be infinite." Her voice broke at the last word, and an irritating ache erupted from the angel's chest. The feeling was quite new to him. He tried ignoring it.

"That's not a quote from the bible," Castiel stated, knowing it for a fact.

The girl shrugged. "Just made it up."

"… It's a good line."

"I have my moments," she said, smiling up at him. Her eyes sparkled just as beautifully as the stars above them, and it was another one of those moments in which Castiel didn't know what to do.

Aubrey was the one who broke the silence. "We should probably head back," she said, looking away from Castiel. He said nothing, not tearing his eyes away from her.

That was when she kissed him.

It took the angel by surprise. Her lips were soft and warm, and a kiss was not at all what Castiel expected it to be. He had imagined kisses as wet and wild and passionate. Part of him suspected that kisses were only like that with people like Dean. Aubrey's kiss was gentle, and light, and didn't last for more than five seconds.

When she pulled away, Castiel said nothing. He only looked at her with furrowed brows. He didn't know if it was because he was in shock, or he was confused, or maybe both.

But the girl was smiling, her eyes closed as she hummed something lightly to herself and Castiel was only able to make out the last few words: _"… with the lips of an angel…"_ She opened her eyes, and Castiel thought that there was no other living creature in the universe that could have told him that her eyes weren't beautiful.

He felt her breath on his lips when she said, "I'm sorry. I needed to do that."

Again, the angel said nothing. She was still smiling when she turned away from him and started walking back to the car.

Castiel trailed behind her. It was odd that he found his legs couldn't quite carry him. By the time he broke past the foliage, Aubrey already had her bags slung across her shoulders. She gave Sam and Dean quick hugs, quick farewells, and when she came up to him again, he stilled.

Aubrey brought her hand to the angel's jaw, and Castiel closed his eyes when she kissed his cheek. Then she turned around and walked away. Although she said nothing to him as a farewell, the words were hidden in her eyes, and only the angel saw what she wanted to say; for sometimes, words would not be able to express raw and unabashed emotion.

"I'll see you guys again!" she called, now a respectable distance from the Impala and the clearing. "You hear me?"

"We hear you!" Dean replied. "Stay alive until then, yeah?"

"You got it!"

When the girl disappeared from view, Castiel didn't know what to do. So, he asked, "How is she going to get back to her car?"

"She'll find a way." Dean beamed at him, and the not-so-innocent-anymore-angel sent a small smile back, the kiss still lingering upon his lips.

Castiel had never understood why humans kept putting their lips together. Sam and Dean always told him that it was an act of love; so was hugging, and "cuddling"; and during that rare moment, Castiel wondered if the girl loved him.

* * *

**8:14 pm** – Castiel was the recipient of Patience.

**9:30 pm** – Castiel watched the freedom of Will at work.

**10:13 pm** – Castiel stared upon Beauty.

**12:05 am** – Castiel experienced Gentleness.

* * *

**don't forget to review! :)**


End file.
